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The best Life experience?
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What's the best thing you have ever done or experienced?
A lady in my office said yesterday that the best thing she had ever done was make time to read the bible and since doing so the huge impact & change it had made to her life.
Got me thinking...made me realise how different we all are & how fairly significant /insignificant things impact on our lives and mean so many different things to different people.
Also made me think,here is a lady who has essentially just read a fictional book and yet it has given a her what she would term as being the best life moment ever.
So I asked my PA,the same question & she said it was a toss up between finally learning to speak Welsh in 2009 or her husbands new boat??
I have become a bit of an office bore today and asked nearly everyone here & obviously got all sorts of answers from a climbing holiday in the Swiss Alps,becoming computer literate,visiting grand parents in Australia,giving up smoking to name but a few.
Most peoples 1st response is generally meeting,the wife/husband,marriage,birth of kids,or a moment in their kids lives which you can't have for the purposes of this thread.
Made me think that I am a bit of shallow git or I am????
All I could think about was football,either a toss up between meeting Dennis Law,going to the World Cup in 1998 or being inside the Nou Camp on the 26th May 1999 when United won the European Cup in such dramatic circumstances.
I am going for the Nou Camp 
Anyone care to share theirs?
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Comments
Driving a dog sled across a frozen lake in Canada last Spring, incredible experience.
And, this is a bit weird, but bare with me, having therapy. After a life when lots of not particualrly nice or pleasant things happened to me, a very capable lady cleared out my head and helped me sort things out. Not going to get all new-age and fuzzy here, but it was definitely the best decision I've made that changed my life for the better.
Oh and running. Running is without doubt one of the best things I do.
Oh and a couple of nice meals - Fat Duck and Mr Underhills in Ludlow.
Live Aid 1985 - I was there
standing atop Mt Blanc/Kilimanjaro
finishing Ironman Switzerland
seeing the Iguazu Falls
seeing Newport beat the All Blacks - October 1963. I was 10
that's the big ones for starters
Completing my first marathon - if we excluding first meeting with husband, wedding day, birth of children - has to be my biggest. Proving to everyone, including myself, that I could do it. I had never seen my husband cry before and the children ran the last 200 metres with me. It was a warm late summer/early autumn day.... it was a fantastic experience.
Oh... and getting my degree of course.... and this summer just gone when we bought my dream house that I had often walked past and hoped I would live in some day...
yeah obv meeting hubby and marriage
passing my driving test - passed it after 10years and on the 10th test with my 5th driving instructor (who was eddie izzards sister!)
getting attested for the police
footy wise - man u treble - england thrashing germany 5-1
watching USHER at the O2 - amazing!!!
I don't feel so bad now that there are a few sport related ones.
I know VLM gets a lot of stick around here but to date it has to be my best life experience.
It's my first and so far only marathon, I had wanted to do it for about 5 years and finally got my chance last year. It was bloody tough as I found out I'm not built for distance but it was amazing. I had my name on my vest so got my name called out along the entire route which really made a difference. I loved running across Tower Bridge & obviously getting my medal at the end was fantastic too.
BRT, at the risk of being tiresome, I'd say that the variation in responses is partly about different ways people can take the question:
etc etc
Obviously some of the most intense experiences are not always the most enjoyable.
For me, starting running had a huge impact on the direction of my life ... but it happened in little stages ... and no single experience of running is all that intense. Joining a choir also made a huge impact on the shape of the rest of my life.
As far as intense experiences go, therapy for me too, suddenly realising what the f*** was going on.... and that it didn't have to.
Lots of things apart from marriage and fatherhood
- Completing an Ironman
- Being within a metre of a Great White Shark ( an ambition since childhood )
- Diving with Manatees and Nile Crocodiles ( not at the same time )
- Having a full grown tiger fall asleep in my lap in Thailand
- Newcastle 3 - 1 Barcelona - Tino, Tino - one of the best nights of my life
- Seeing my book published after all the hard work
- Seeing a wild leopard up close
- White water rafting in OZ and scaring myself silly bungee jumping in South Africa
- Joining the Pirates
So mostly travel / nature realted from me.Getting picked to play netball for England.
Skiing, any day, anywhere.
Both. My poor use of English language
.
There's another one that I would add to the list but it involves the off-spring, so
.
Canadian experiences sound
Sorry,gfb, we trounced your lot
. But thank you for that
And the Scottish girls wore tartan skirts.
Getting rather too close to what turned out to be a fairly deadly snake while out running in Australia was fairly intense, but not something I would recommend or want to repeat.
Had some great moments playing cricket, catches that stuck,wickets at critical times, people I've met.
I concur with Holgs on the Toon / Barca game, but the four-all comeback last weekend was pretty exciting too!
I'll have to think about this
marathon, swimming with dolphins, feeding wild dolphins, sunrise - 2 places - standing on top of Sydney bridge and also at Uluru/Ayers rock
Also a bit sad but work - chiefly due to travelling and working in many different countries
England 2-2 v Greece at Old Trafford, my second favorite footy stadium after Wembley and we qualified for the world cup, amazing game from Becks and a great free kick at the end(first England game aswell)
England 2-0 v Turkey at Sunderland, David Beckham rocked,
Muse at Old Trafford cricket ground 2010, best concert I've been too.
Sorry there were 4 BRT but I couldn't narrow it down
mine -
bungee jump into the River Nile
my dad pushing me through a field of corn in my pushchair and the corn was taller than me........wow
being in the middle of a herd of grazing elephants in the Masi Mara
getting my degree
I'm sure there's more, but they are the ones that instantly stand out
Top billing goes to completing IM France - I don't think I could have crammed so much emotion into one day.
Fear, more fear, amazement at the beauty of the scenery (as much amazement as I could muster on that 21km climb anyway), anger, exhaustion, determination which turned into unbelievable joy and pride that I could achieve something like that and relief that I managed it and proved any critics that I had wrong.
Cried like the girl that I am throughout much of the day (and the night before) and felt properly numb afterwards because I knew at that point I would never have as good a feeling as I did running down that finish chute.
Still gives me a lump in my throat thinking about it.
+1 for what Holly said.
I'd include all that went before it too, training (in all weathers at all times of the day and night), overtraining, exhaustion, tears and the fear, oh my, the fear. Then you get there on the day and it's strangely calm. You start and you have such a huge range of feelings, intensified by the enormity of the day. There's nothing like it.
I learned so much about myself, what I could put myself through, that I do have motivation and determination in shedloads and nobody will ever take that away from me.
I was told by a wise old pirate that an IM is one of the top 3 life experiences. He wasn't wrong!