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[TheSmyth]

Changes might be small, but they're still changes, and long term they can add up to bigger ones.
Example: It was a friends birthday yesterday... so I offered to drive him to the casino last night. Now, he won a few hundred quid, and that's obviously made him happy, and in turn he went on to make his family happy by splashing out on them. So when they go to work happy maybe they'll make other people happy. Contagion like.

On the flip side: Because I took him to the casino, and he was winning, we didn't get home until early this morning, so I'm tired and can't be bothered today, and maybe I'm making other people unhappy.

Either way, it was my choice / offer to take him that started the process.

True story by the way

[Hkizzle]

Another factor though in the butterfly effect is that it can be like waves that dies out over time and distance. Especially since there are so many waves that come from other sources, the effect we have can be lost.

[TheSmyth]

But even waves don't actually 'die out' they just become a different form of output.
Like either another wave (bigger / smaller) or a tide (which erodes the shorelines every year).
The effect of each individual wave might be minimal, but if all waves stopped it would be a big impact.

Take the example of Climate Change. If I choose to turn of all my lights and conserve energy, it will have a some, albeit small, effect, but why should I bother when everyone else is wasting so much?
If the whole of the UK chose to conserve energy, it would have a slightly bigger effect, but why should we bother when the US doesn't care anyway?
But if i stopped, and that made my neighbour stop, and so on, and so on, until the whole country decided it was a good idea, maybe the US would reconsider.

Small changes leading to big things... But the key is: LONG-TERM.

[Stroggy]

Not sure if this is completely related by my dad has escaped harm twice, and death once, due to a turn of events. One story goes that he once missed his bus to school because he tripped over a loose stone and lost his contact lenses... that same bus he was trying to reach crashed into a truck and drove off the road causing most passengers to get seriously hurt.

This is actually more "the smaller scale of things" but still, small annoying events hindering you may not always be so bad as they seem at first sight.

[Hkizzle]

Down the hill from where I used to live there is a main road where the road turns sharply and the cars drive way too fast. A Philipino woman had already been killed by a hit and run that year.
One day I pressed the button to make the lights go red so I can cross. When I saw the little green man I started walking. I was listening to my cd player so didn't hear a mini bus approaching way too fast. It missed my face by 6 inches and was so fast it stopped 10 meters further on.
I looked at the bus and all the passengers were looking at me. I was too shocked to take down the license plate or even give the driver the middle finger.

O well.