The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) indicates that the adjective crucial has its origin etymological in English crucial, although the more remote antecedents of the term take us to French crucial and in Latin crucis or crux ("cross" ).

The concept is often used to mention a decisive or critical moment . In this sense, a situation crucial is the one that results determinant , vital or conclusive . For example: “Crucial minutes of the match: Lopez prepares to execute the penalty kick that could give the title to Deportivo San Darío”, "The police, in a crucial decision, decided to act and shoot the kidnapper", "The manager stressed that getting this contract is crucial for the company".
The notion of crucial has multiple uses according to context . A debate in the Congress , the performance of a soccer player, a music record, the speech of a politician or the development of certain infrastructure works can be described as crucial since each of these issues has a vital importance in their countryside.
Of course, the crucial applies to a specific area. If a player scores three goals in a match, there will be talk of a crucial performance for his team or even for the definition of a tournament, but that performance will have little relevance for the reality from a country or the world. On the other hand, if a president makes the decision to attack another country, the measure will be crucial for international news and for the lives of millions of people.
Crucial, finally, is what is shaped like a cross and the name of the Commercial brand of the American company Micron Technology .
The crucial moments of life
Since we were born, we go through various stages, each well defined by psychology, which determines our future decisively; While there is always the possibility of building on wounds and failures, nobody can erase them. Therefore, it is correct to say that our lifetime It is composed of a series of crucial moments.
It all starts with our first contact with the world, with the rest of the living beings. Regardless of what happens moments later, the first relationship we have since we began to exist is established with our mother, or she does it with us. Different studies have shown that the experiences lived in the womb are a crucial element of our developing, since they are recorded deep inside our brain, although we cannot remember them voluntarily.
Our upbringing, especially the first five years, represents another of the decisive points of our life: we learn to speak, to walk, to write, we discover the light and the figures, the sounds ... Of course we are not all born with the five active senses , not even with the same degree of health, so this approach to reality varies in each case. And it does so independently of physical impairments, since each individual perceives the world in its own way and at its own pace.
The passage through the school is, more than a moment, a crucial period. Throughout the years that our academic education lasts, we make our first friends, see each other in the middle of a group of people and learn to relate, we discover our weaknesses and our strengths, our sexuality flourishes ... Very few people can say without diverting the look that have not lived moments of anguish, sadness, frustration in his student age; but, leaving aside the effectiveness of system current educational, all this makes us stronger and faces our first responsibilities.
Once this extensive and unforgettable chapter of our existence is over, many face the decision to part with their parents, some begin to live as a couple, others marry, have children, or dedicate their lives to their vocation and undertake long journeys to meet themselves. With the coming of age comes another series of crucial moments, more particular, more difficult to face, but each time we have more tools to solve them in the best possible way.