Seriously, if opportunity comes knocking open the door and quit trying to figure out why. That is what everyone tells you to do anyway. I am personally of the belief that opportunity does not come knocking on your door. Opportunities are something you make as a result of your actions and choices in life. Everything we do drives us towards our future, and what we choose today will have an effect on what happens tomorrow. The “opportunity” to become wealthy isn’t going to fall out of the sky one day, we have to make that opportunity happen.
Think about this, how often does someone say “The opportunity to become a millionaire just fell in my lap and I took it” more likely it is “the opportunity to steal a million dollars presented itself and I took it.” You see fraud is a crime a of opportunity, someone realizes the chance of getting caught is less than the trouble to take the money. The opportunity exists for them to take the money and they do. This isn’t how things work in real life. You are 1,000,000 times more likely to get caught committing fraud if you have to create the opportunity, in life you have to create your opportunities. The point I am trying to make is that in most instances when an “opportunity” presents itself to you the consequences are most likely not to your liking. On the other hand if you work to create opportunities for improvement your success will also increase.
Living the American dream is a perfect example of creating your opportunities. Have you ever noticed that the owner of your mom and pop gas station is there every day from open to close? They are creating their opportunities by working their butts off to live their dream. They didn’t wake up one day and say man I hope an opportunity presents itself today, they worked their asses off, and do it every day. Stop waiting for your opportunity to present itself, get out there and create it, TODAY!
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Good point, and who know what tomorrow will bring,
Carpe Diem!!!
Kyle, you are exactly right. In fact I have a specific example of how I am trying to create future opportunities by working hard today. I am an engineer for a large corporation. My current job is one I love, and could see myself doing forever. But it is very specific work and opportunities for advancement are limited. Also, this particular job limits the places that I can work, so it can be difficult to advance by changing locations.
My boss recently gave me the chance to change my job. It would have broader responsibilities and would provide lots of room for promotion, as well as more opportunities in different locations if that is what my family needs. It is a lateral move, so there are no pay or benefit increases. There are two problems: it will be rather boring compared to my current job, and I have no direct experience doing it. There will be days and weeks of training, months of trying new things and failing, and maybe years until I am skilled enough to warrant a promotion.
I talked about it with my wife and decided to take the new job. It is going to be hard, and might not be very fun, but it will set me up for opportunities later. If I am very good, the ceiling in a corporation like mine will move from mid-level corporate manager to division vice president. By broadening my skills, the variety of companies I can work for, and the variety of locations I can work in, increases greatly which improves my career flexibility and allows my wife more opportunities in her career. And if I wanted to start my own business, having successfully applied these skills in the real world will be crucial to my credibility with clients.
I don’t know if these opportunities will knock or not. All I can do is give them the map and work as hard as I can to get them to the front door.
Nice pep talk!
Each day we’re met with boundless opportunities and the more we educate ourselves the more opportunities we’ll see. For example a real estate developer looks at the real estate landscape completely different than someone without any real estate knowledge.
We literally create our own opportunities and the harder we work the luckier we get with better opportunities.
They’re out there, just gotta go get them.
Nice post
i went and created one and i love it. i still haven’t started getting results but i feel it in my bones that i made the right choice. i believe that dreams are there to be lived and i am going to get all of mine fulfilled. i do not plan on looking back to my life when i am old and grey and start dreaming about what could have been if i had grown some balls when i was younger. i have seen this regret in too many people and i will not be in that club
Always good to have a nice kick in the pants. Nice article, look forward to reading more!
.-= Money Beagle´s last blog ..Net Worth Review: March 2010 =-.
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