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Jagger
Member
08-07-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 10:36 am
I guess my biggest gamble would be to have started up my on line business www.bringenwillgifts.com along with the retail part of it, it was a pretty expensive start up and really hasn't paid off at all. The only good thing is at least I can say I tried.
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Max
Moderator
08-12-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 10:46 am
Moving from Arcata, CA to Oakland, CA to follow a sailor. Paid off career-wise eventually, but the relationship didn't last past two years. Turning down a job becuase when the employer made the offer, the salary was substantially less than the recruiter had told me it would be. Paid off because they called me the next day and offered me the job for the higher rate of pay. Leaving my husband and taking half of the HUGE debt we had with me. Thought I would be declaring bankruptcy soon after, but managed to make it through. Paid off in that I'm now debt free, except for my mortgage. Deciding not to seek a "regular" job after getting laid off from the corporate world and instead try to make a living working from home and doing things I enjoy more than corporate power plays and politics. Paid off (so far)! I'm sure there are more, but I don't really think of them as gambles because I usually have a pretty good road map in mind before I make a move - okay, except for the last one which I didn't know was coming! 
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 10:55 am
LOL, Eeyore! I'm not a big risk-taker, either, but my dh is. Mine was approving a business venture my dh pushed for, despite my personal misgivings. The venture ended in financial disaster for us (through no fault of my dh). The venture itself was solid; the people he partnered with were not. Despite that, the ensuing struggle brought us closer together. (My dh was devastated and I knew that. I never once threw the 'I told you so' thing in his face. He scrambled to keep us afloat by taking anything to bring in money. For awhile he drove an airport limo at night and did mortgages during the day. A legal suit my dh pursued against his unscrupulous partners finally [took 10 long years to find them and nail them] reconciled the financial part of the burden.) Sure did change the course of our lives, though.
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Vacanick
Member
07-12-2004
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 11:41 am
Meeting by boyfriend on an on-line dating site. It will be one year together next month!
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Tabbyking
Member
03-11-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 11:44 am
well, i moved from california to quebec with 200 dollars when i was 19. moved to the bronx at age 20 and lived illegally at the albert einstein college of medicine dorms. moved back to california for 3 years, then moved to boston. then back to california. i have learned never to move somewhere for a guy you met in a bathtub during the trinity river raft races LOL it was a big gamble to buy this house in shingletown without having sold our other home first! things were selling like hotcakes, so who knew the bubble would burst the day we listed our home!? it looks like things are going to work out, but we spent all of our savings and my husband's severance pay to hang onto both houses. phew! but i figure since i was born on a saturday (saturday's child has to work for its living) in the year of the horse (the horse's aptitude for hard work is amazing), nothing is gonna come easy to me! i really wanted to be born on a day where i was full of grace and born in the year of the rat. LOL
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 11:54 am
I can't think of any. But heck sometimes waking up everyday is a gamble...
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Irishtxgrl
Member
12-07-2005
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 12:45 pm
For me I would have to say the biggest gamble I have ever taken is walking away from destructive family members and I have never been happier and felt better about a choice.
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Hukdonreality
Member
09-29-2003
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 12:50 pm
I met Mame and Vinblanche, DeanofWords, and Shadoe in Niagara Falls, Canada. Thank heavens they forgot their axes! Not much of a gambler here... Oh, did it pay off? Well, after paying for my and Valerie's lunches and the valet parking, I broke even.
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Tater
Member
03-19-2003
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 2:12 pm
Biggest gamble was moving from LA back to the Poconos to take care of my grandma and open a Native American/Southwestern business in her old gas station. Then I gambled again and moved back to LA to work in the Visual Effect Biz.
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Twiggyish
Member
08-14-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 2:31 pm
I have a few. One big one has to do with moving from Ft. Lauderdale many years ago. My husband and I decided to leave our hometown in 1982. We wanted to own a home, and we knew it would never happen there. We've never regretted it.
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Grannyg
Member
05-28-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 3:08 pm
Kicking my first hubby out of the house after I caught him in bed with my "best friend". Del was 6 months old. Had no job and was living in a new town. Found a job and we almost starved to death but it was the best thing I ever did for myself. I was 22 years old and boy did I ever grow up fast. Then I met Fred and we've been married almost 31 years.
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Jbean
Member
01-05-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 3:39 pm
buying a spankin' new car while i was still a full time college student. i had to work nearly full time to pay for the damn thing. as a consequence, my school work suffered, and i still could hardly make the payment....no, it didn't pay off. that was an idiotic move on my part.
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Marysafan
Member
08-07-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 4:03 pm
Much to the dismay of my parents and his parents, I got on a plane at the ripe old age of 18, leaving behind my home, my family, and my goal of attending nursing school in the fall, and got married. We had no idea what the future might hold, or where the US Navy was going to send us...but whatever was going to happen, we were determined that we were going to face it together. That was May 1, 1969...and we still don't know what the future might bring, but we are still facing it together...and oh yeah...it was SOOOOOO worth it.
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Landi
Member
07-29-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 4:12 pm
having my daughter 15 years and 354 days ago. doctors told me i shouldn't have kids, and it almost killed me having her, and i've got more medical repercussions lately because of it, but she's the light of my life and the best friend i've ever had, and i wouldn't trade one minute of the time.
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Twiggyish
Member
08-14-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 6:45 pm
I love the poll question today.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 6:51 pm
My story is just like Half's.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 7:40 pm
As a kid, simply staying alive was the payoff for many things I was forced to do by my sadistic abusers.. just living to be 13 and ending up safe in California. As an adult it was a real leap of faith to leave my marriage though I did have a job, but I left with $2000 and three large dogs and not much else.. oh yeah and I got the old car with 300,000 miles on it.. yay. That broke open my stability after a few more years and my long therapy dealing with the aftereffects of the childhood torture, THAT was the biggest leap and yes it paid off, again, in surviving and being whole and relatively healthy.
Mocha, can't speak for you, but I think it was an amazing thing, what you did to buy your boys at least 10 more years of having their father in their life.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 7:41 pm
Pamy, Bill had guns? Guess he would, huh?
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Landi
Member
07-29-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 7:45 pm
seamonkey, i agree about mocha too. what an amazing gift she gave of herself.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 8:35 pm
Sea, he had a REAL big one. oh yeah he had guns too
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 9:30 pm
Pamy, 
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Nickovtyme
Member
07-29-2004
| Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 9:31 pm
Pamy...I figured that should read: "he had a big REAL one" My biggest gamble was saying yes when asked if I wanted to go on a blind-date. We've been married for seven years now, with two beautiful daughters.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 6:19 pm
LOL Nick!
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Yellek
Member
08-22-2001
| Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 6:52 pm
Leaving my family, my friends, my job, in Seattle to move 3000 miles across the country with my boyfriend who got a job in North Carolina (I was just happy he finally found a frickin job after 5 yrs together!). 6 months later... I moved out, began dating his co-worker, now married 8 years... Yep, paid off, but not the way I thought it would! But I still miss Seattle... I don't fit in down here in the bible belt... ah well.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 10:17 pm
Love today's question. By far the most fascinatin' stuff I've read here - ever. My biggest gamble has always been to follow my dreams and believe in myself, just enough to protect myself, and long enough to reinvent myself. To have grown up in a childhood of exclusion, to be told by family members and guidance councellors who wrote me off, that I was basically nothing and going to end up absolutely nowhere. And to create a career as a freelance writer, out of thin air, and some innate talent. And to do this through the school of hard knocks, and to then find myself on retainer to the most respected newmagazine in the country at one point, and to have gotten my own column in a couple of major city newspapers and other periodicals over the years. I am a genuine case of 'I'll show 'them' - I won't let 'them' dictate who I am or how I'll live!' And I did. Against all odds, I found happiness with a wonderful, courageous man who accepts me,and loves me, myself, and I, even after we had an earthshattering breakup when we were first engaged. Gambling on ourselves and our love, he and I, both walking on emotional eggshells, took another chance, and it has paid off a thousandfold, even though its not always a smooth ride. So all in all, I am a lucky gal, all because I gambled on myself - the epitome of a loser in many people's eyes, and won. And 'they' can kiss my Royal Canadian!
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