An Atmosphere Of Opportunity Surrounding Humanity

Opportunities are like the waters in the sea but we don't usually see them because they're either disguised in adversity or hidden inside, beneath or behind our interest or focus per time. We're surrounded by opportunities but we don't usually recognise them, as a matter of fact an average person utilises very few of the millions of opportunities available to him in his lifetime.

Discovering your talents may not be easy same with opportunities. In fact, where you're right now, there are countless opportunities around you. Opportunity missed is a potential opportunity but you may not recognise in the future that's why it's smart to avail yourself of the opportunities around you.

Mrs. Ekpenyong, a Biology teacher going for a promotion interview slated for 10am was held up in traffic in a commercial bus at 9.45am and was all sweat because of the inherent stress. She left home early to beat the traffic yet she couldn't. Meanwhile she had been praying for this promotion for the past three years. She felt like a green snake divorced by a green grass.

She heard people talking in the bus but wasn't listening. Her immediate neighbour in the 'danfo' was talking to her friend about a neighbour-nun from the UK who had established a global standard girls-only Secondary School and was desperately looking for a female teacher with humble background and minimum of ten years working experience to head the school because she wouldn't be staying in Nigeria.

Mrs. Ekpenyong lost out on that wonderful opportunity that would have transformed her life and that of her family because she was too passionate to avail herself of an opportunity and lost out on a bigger opportunity. Even if she had heard perhaps she might ignore it because she could take the information with levity. She never knew she'd missed an opportunity.

A jobless man, Azuka who frequent a company in search of job may meet with a wifely-material but because what he wanted there was what he focused on he might never think of her as his significant other because he never saw another opportunity in that company except a job which he didn't get at the end of the day.

A house painter, Yaya met a contractor at a site and the contractor asked for his complimentary card for he claimed he doesn't work with unserious artisans. He gave Yaya five days to go get one. Meanwhile Yaya had just N5,000 left with him and the printer demanded N4,500 but he refused on the ground that if he spent N4,500 on complimentary cards what would he be eating till he gets another job, more so the contractor might disappoint him and he would suffer untold hardship so he refused to do any complimentary card and never went back to tender his apology and use the opportunity to explain his situation.

Meanwhile the contractor had planned to give him 'crumb-jobs' each time he gets one which he gets at least once in a month and the minimum profit this hapless painter would make from each crumb-job is over N250,000 which was ten times bigger than the profit he ever made from a single job as a painter. The crumb-jobs here would give the 'Lazarus-crumbs' goose pimples, grey hair and clothe with the coat of grass.

When I see successful people
I 'see' the landlord, opportunity – ejecting the tenant, adversity!

Of course he lost out on that opportunity because he was afraid of risks. But if the contractor had disappointed him he would still be able to give companies, contractors and individuals who might demand for complimentary cards because they see it as a mobile office.

You need a job to get experience but you need experience to get a job, how pathetic and ironic! Students can beat that – while you are on semester break apply to companies to work for them for free because you want to learn from them and get experience. I'm sure many entrepreneurs and companies wouldn't mind that offer. I can assure you many would retain you after graduating from school – most especially if you've the attributes employers desire.

After working for many years you have an intimidating wealth of work experience and you can delve into the field of consultancy most especially when you're retired but not tired. In the same vein, an ex-service man can start a security outfit. Because you'd a successful marriage is an opportunity to be a marriage counselor. The fact that you'd a turbulent marriage is also an opportunity. If you were domestically abused you can champion the cause of women as far as domestic abuse is concerned.

Opportunities create abilities conversely abilities create opportunities.

When young people die I see huge potentials going too early to the grave alas when old people die I see vast experiences going too early to the grave, oh death, when are you going to die?

Don't be scared of adversities in opportunities and don't be complacent with one opportunity. Use that opportunity as a key to open doors of other opportunities. If you were once a celebrity, it's an opportunity because once a celebrity, always a celebrity. If you made an impact in one field or career it's easy to swerve to other fields. Hulk Hogan and the like didn't find it difficult delving into Hollywood.

Because you lived in a slum all your life is an opportunity jeez because you live in a highbrow neighbourhood all your life is an opportunity. You're a six-footer, oh what an opportunity. Do you see your petite frame as an adversity oh, it's an opportunity!

Wealth is an opportunity so is poverty! Many physically-challenged people want people to sympathise with them because they see it as an adversity but when people sympathise with them they end up giving them fish but if they empathise they would teach them how to catch fish which is better, nobler and an opportunity to make wealth and teach others how to fish. Sympathy is an emotional reaction, empathy an intellectual response.

Being a published writer is an opportunity so is the class of unpublished writers. An unknown actor would beat a popular actor if the director or the executive producer needed a relatively unknown actor in a movie.

Ironically your knowledge is an opportunity so is ignorance. Let me expatiate on the ignorance: we hear of babies, young children surviving in a car crash because they didn't know the effect of a car about to crash unlike adults who know the repercussion and fear through that singular knowledge killed them. Nonetheless knowledge is far better than ignorance because generally speaking ignorance kills much more than knowledge.

I've learnt that many times in life, the bigger the risks you take the greater the benefits and the bigger the challenges, the greater the breakthroughs. People may not want you to suffer but they may equally not want you to have a phenomenal success; they may want you to succeed but they might love to dictate the level of your success, however you may decide to be complacent and remain within the circumference they'd planned for you or choose to fly above any and every limitation.

You create opportunities if you decide to take a new route to your workplace, school, market or wherever. Another vista of opportunities unfold before you if you decide to call or check on someone you've seen a longtime ago or you decide to ask for forgiveness or forgive and reconcile with someone. However, opportunity and adversity go together just like oxygen and air or the two sides of a coin. It's a great opportunity for me to be conveying this information to you so is it with my reading audience.

In rounding off:
There are seven days in a week. This translates to seven OPPORTUNITIES! Each day is an OPPORTUNITY and in that OPPORTUNITY lies Opportunities and in each Opportunity countless opportunities are embedded. One opportunity can transform your life completely.

See, God wants you to succeed that's why you're surrounded by opportunities. Now tell God to make you sensitive to recognise them. We live in an ocean of opportunities and one opportunity opens the doors to other opportunities if we're smart and sensitive enough to recognise them.

Wishing you all a big, bright week.