Anonymous, artist, 63, former New Yorker now living in Mexico

I went to a job interview in the 1980s in New York, when I was in my early 30s. It was something to do with hotel marketing. There I was, dressed in a nice suit with a crisp résumé, feeling like a grownup. Halfway through, the interviewer said, “I don’t think you really want this job.” I didn’t, and she had the insight to see it.

I was broke and in tears, but I remember to this day how I felt walking down the street. I never went to another interview and dedicated my life to studying, to travelling and making art. I am 63 now, and still learning to dance.

Anonymous, doctor, 67, Hampshire

I was 14 and at an average private school. It was the school my father had been to and his brother taught there, which I found uncomfortable. My younger brother had just won a scholarship to a much better private school. I was at a sports event with my father at my school and he got talking to another parent, who congratulated him on having clever children. My father indicated towards me and said, “No, he’s the dim one.” I remember the parent’s intake of breath and a surprised, “Oh.” I have never forgotten this.

My father died at the age of 51, when I was 29. It is shattering how one unguarded comment can resonate for a lifetime. I feel that the very many things I have done in my professional life have been to try to prove him wrong.

Anonymous, fiftysomething dog-owner, northern England

In the 1980s, I applied to one of the most lauded universities in America. The form was many pages long, and the last page was blank; it said, “Write something about yourself.” After several days of agonising, I thought, “What would Weird Al do?” (I was a massive fan of his song parodies even then.) So I wrote the story of my life to the tune of Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weeny, Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini. I was immediately ashamed, as if I’d made fun of the seriousness of applying.

The conversation that changed my life was a message left on my answering machine. A woman from the university intake department said everyone there had read my song and thought it was the funniest thing they’d heard. She ended her message with, “I really hope – everyone here really hopes – you get in.”

I did get accepted to that university, but it was $16,000 a year, so I had to decline. To this day, though, I’ll never forget the giggles in that woman’s voice, and the image of an office full of people singing the song I’d written. I treasured that message until the tape wore out.

Richard, 50, mortician, US

My wife of 18 years asked me to see if I could fix something on her computer. In doing so, I found a journal she had written revealing she was in a “loveless, parenting partnership”. This was news to me. I didn’t confront her about it at the time, but she revealed an affair a couple of years later and our marriage ended. We are now parenting partners by law, and not particularly friendly.

Anonymous, 80, retired, Lanarkshire

I served with the RAF in Cyprus in the mid-1950s. An airman on my watch came around with a load of addresses of English girls who would like to correspond with us. I picked a girl out because she had such a lovely name, and we started to write to each other.

When I came back home, I decided to pay her a visit and we got on really well – so well, in fact, that I moved up north and we got engaged. We have been married for 57 years, and all because a lonely airman liked the sound of a girl’s name. But for her, I don’t think I’d have had such a wonderful life.

Anonymous, freelance management consultant, father of two sons, Doncaster

I was working for a well-known mobile phone company. There was an expectation to be connected almost 24/7 – taking calls in the car, logging on from home after a long working day.

One summer’s day, I drove home while participating in a difficult conference call that was still going as I turned into the driveway. The front door opened and out ran my youngest son, about six, a mop of blond hair and a big smile. He ran up to me, full of the joys of childhood, but I waved him away, miming a shush as harshly but silently as I could.

The phone call ended badly and I had work to do that evening. As I waited to log on in my home office, I noticed a piece of paper on the printer. At the top was a clip-art picture of a builder, complete with hard hat and overalls. Below were the words that changed my life: “Once there was a builder who went to work every day. It was very hard work and when he got back from work he was cross.”

I must have sat for an hour staring at it. Was this how I was? I turned off my laptop. I’m not saying I never worked long hours again, but I’ve done it on my terms. I decluttered my life. I took steps to eliminate stress. I made my sons a priority and, years on, I am relieved and honoured to have an incredible bond with both. I still carry that piece of paper with me in my laptop case.

Lisa, 36, part-time solicitor and mother, Bristol

The last text message I received from Tig said, “Not lame at all xx.” It was summer 2008 and I was standing at the bus stop by Clapham Common waiting for a bus back to Norwood. We had just had a phone conversation where I had backed out of going to a gig with him the following evening – Chromeo playing at The End. I rang him and explained; he sounded amused at my newfound concern for work and being a grownup. I followed up with a text: “Sorry to be lame. Can’t take the pace these days x.”

I had met Tig at university, where we both studied English. We were best friends, then went out together, and then lived together. The weekend after that text exchange, I got a call from our mutual friend Anna. Tig had died at a pre-Notting Hill carnival party on the Saturday night. I don’t have that phone any more, but the text stays in my mind. I miss him, and I miss dancing with him.

Carol Jeffery, New Hampshire, US

As a senior at university, I was making up for an incomplete in the only course I had taken that semester. My professor, who had known me and my family since I was a toddler, asked me what I expected in my future. I told him that I would be a dedicated teacher. “Dedicated?” he said, “You are the most cavalier person I know.”

I was, at that moment, liberated from all the admonitions of my upbringing, and I have gratefully acknowledged his comment ever since. I believe I have been true to my moral code. I also think that I have had more fun than most people ever do.

Anonymous, 30, surveyor, London

In 2013, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and after numerous types of chemotherapy, the decision was made that I required a donor stem cell transplant. In November 2014, I received my donor cells; all I knew was that they were from a 22-year-old American man, blood type O+.

My recovery was tough. I was desperate to get back to being a “normal” twentysomething, which I now recognise wasn’t really possible. By February 2016, I was about ready to give up. I couldn’t keep up with my peers, was finding a fledgling relationship difficult, and felt under enormous pressure at work. Because I looked well, having finally ditched the wig and lost the weight, it was expected that I was well – only I wasn’t.

I returned home from work one day to my empty flat, talking to my mother on the phone while I absentmindedly opened the post. My jaw dropped when I read the words, “Please find enclosed a letter from your donor.” The contents of the short letter were vague, because they had to be non-identifying, but they were still the words of the man to whom I owed my life: touching a piece of paper he had touched moved me to floods of tears. It was a simple letter, describing the path he had taken that led him to donate his cells to me.

I stopped feeling quite so hard done by and came to accept that I have a different lot in life. Yes, I have scars, I tire easily, I am not as “fun” as I was, and I will never experience the joy of having a child. But I was given an opportunity to see my 30th birthday, and to find the boyfriend who accepted all of my past.

Brent Wilson, 57, professor of geology and palaeontology at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago

My father studied O-level geology in the early 1960s, when the subject was a novelty, and when he was a trainee surveyor for the Coal Board. As an infant, I had no interest in the sandstones and shales of my West Yorkshire home in Huddersfield. One spring weekend when I was about eight, however, we went to the Lake District, and one chance remark set the course for my entire life.

We were walking across the hillsides when my father scuffed a pebble with his boot. In my mind’s eye, I picture it as granite, but who can say after all this time? It fell into several pieces. My father picked up one of them, showed me the broken face, and said, “You know, we are the first people ever to see that.”

“To see what?”

“The inside of this rock.”

I was hooked. Over the years, he taught me the difference between igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary lithologies; he was with me when at age 10 I found my first fossil (a Jurassic clam that I still keep in a Captain Webb matchbox). He nurtured the interest that would become my career as a micropaleontologist – and all of it can be traced back to his one, probably chance comment on a windswept, sun-drenched hillside. Thanks, Dad, for facilitating me having such a rich life.

Anonymous, 50, Wiltshire

I was sitting in a hospital canteen with my father. My mother was having an operation to remove a tumour in her breast, and we were waiting for news. We were talking about my sibling, who was thinking about being a foster carer. My father, avoiding eye contact now, said, “Of course we fostered a girl when you were little – do you remember?” I said I did. I asked why she had been with us and was told that she had been abused by her father. I asked what had happened to the girl and why she left us; he replied that she had been a bad influence on me.

I felt as if I could faint. For years, I knew I had been abused myself and that it was by a female, but I could not work out who. It all came flooding back. I sought counselling and have put the past in order. It was a conversation of very few words, but held so much meaning. I have since cut ties with my parents.

Anonymous

My father was a Pole who decided to remain in the UK after the end of the second world war. He had had a torrid time; he was 16 and had been taken by Russian groups who mistook his Scouts uniform for a military one. He had not only lost what remained of his childhood, but the deep understanding of family that accompanies it.

He ruled the family like a dictator. Being over 6ft 3in with a loud voice and a short fuse, he was quite intimidating. But he could also be kind, taking the family, including numerous cousins, camping and for days out to the seaside.

One evening, we were driving home after dropping my mum off for her night shift in a local hospital. I had been reading about the possibility that the moon had once been part of the Earth, and was explaining this to him. His response was to shout me down and tell me to shut up. I did, more or less for the rest of our lives.

That one conversation encouraged me to listen to others and to appreciate the importance of an open mind. Sadly, our relationship never recovered. It turned out that, at least in this regard, I was as pigheaded as him. We both lost out.

Rich, 25, teacher, Hangzhou, China

I applied for a teaching job in China after finishing university. I had always been terrified of public speaking and wanted to conquer that fear. A few months into the role, I received a thank you letter from one of my students, who had done particularly well in an English competition. It was the moment I felt everything click, when I realised I was far more happy and confident than I had ever been. She was a phenomenal student, determined to become a lawyer, and I doubt she will ever truly realise the impact that letter had. We are still in touch.

Anonymous, works in IT

I landed a job at a very large tech corporation as a business manager – a sales role with a revenue target and lots of forecasting about what customers will do and when. Within the first day, it was clear I was out of my depth. After six weeks, I decided to walk. I packed up my desk, stood up and headed briskly for the exit. As I did, a colleague pulled me into the on-site cafe. His name was Lewis and our 10-minute conversation changed everything.

I told him just how badly I was doing, how convinced I was that I would never understand this new world. He told me, with a smile, that I shouldn’t quit and that I should try two things: 1) Don’t say thank you (I was always so enthused when people spoke to me). Just nod instead, with eye contact. 2) Everyone wants to impress their manager and colleagues. Just tell them what they want to hear. He explained how a single nod of thanks was far better than fawning over someone: it says that you recognise the help, but you would have got there eventually. It makes you look more assured, while the recipient feels validated and keen to impress you again.

It worked, and seven years later I am still doing the same thing. Customers started to place more and more orders. Colleagues asked me for advice (I repeated their question back to them in the form of advice and praised them for asking the question). Managers trusted that I had a plan.

I genuinely question whether I have any ideas of my own, because I always just repeat, in a variety of ways, what the other person is saying. After two years, intelligent people completely figure me out, so I have to move departments fairly regularly.

Alex, 34, copywriter, Kent

My dad had died a few days before, and I was on a train going home from my mum’s. The funeral was scheduled and my mum wanted me to read a poem. I was on my own, trying to memorise the poem while I looked at a happy childhood photo of me, my sister and my dad. The tears were flowing.

A stranger come over with a pack of tissues. She sat next to me, looked at the photo and chatted to me about why I was upset. I can’t remember most of the conversation, but she told me it didn’t matter if I got upset at the funeral and cried while reading the poem, because that’s what people expect. And that my dad would be proud of me for just considering reading it. She was only on the train for one or two stops, but she asked if she could give me a hug, and I said yes. Her words stayed with me, and I remembered that kind stranger while I read the poem.

Anonymous, Worthing

It was a phone conversation with a lady from Alcoholics Anonymous. She said there was good news and bad news. The bad news is that there is no cure: once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. The good news is that it’s his problem, not mine. This happened 40 years ago, and helped me move on.

Sue, 46, pharma medical affairs director, Surrey

The phone call was from my mother when she told me she had made up her mind to travel to Dignitas to end her life. We knew she was considering it after having been diagnosed with motor neurone disease five months earlier, but this was the moment when a possibility became a reality. She explained that, as the world’s most independent woman, the prospect of losing all mobility and dignity was intolerable, and she asked if I would accompany her. I replied that it would be my privilege (and silently crumbled at the thought of what was to come).

After she swallowed the barbiturates that would end her life, she told me how lucky and grateful she was to have felt such love for her friends and family, and to have been so loved in return. Then she fell asleep.

John Lees, 59, retired, Denmark

In August 1982, I was on my way to India for a year out. My ticket let me have a two-week stopover in Greece, so I headed up the coast to get some long overdue sun. Once settled into my hostel, I went into the village, hoping to meet other youngsters heading east, but ended up falling in with a retired couple from Derby.

Bert and Mary took me under their wing and we spent much of their last four days’ holiday together. On the last day, we went for a walk and I drew Bert, a retired army officer, on the Falklands conflict with a statement I thought he’d warm to. With all the innocence of someone who had no experience of war, I said, “We beat the Argies then. I’ll bet you’re proud!” He turned to me with eyes filled with contempt and anger: “Listen, war is about young men dying on their own far away from home!” I thank Bert for those words every day.