Knock on opportunity’s door

Opportunities don’t just present themselves on a silver platter. They need to be created and cultivated. Nobody likes hustling for work but we all have to do it, in some way or form, to be on top of our game. There is no shame in working hard and trying to keep ahead of your competitors. It’s what you do and how you do it that matters.

You can’t just wait around for life to happen to you: you have to put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life. When your source of income is giving you less than you want, it will tend to upset you. But if you manage to settle yourself emotionally, you will be a more effective problem solver and opportunity creator. Panic only begets chaos.

Someone very wise once told me to dig my well before I’m thirsty. Well that’s certainly a great thought but how does one apply it to real life? Given the stresses and tensions of life, not to mention kids, work and health issues, creating something new seems like an impossible feat to achieve.

I guess this is where one needs to remember to stay ahead of the game. If you see a doctor regularly, and not just when you are sick, then the chances of you staying healthy are a lot better. And if you do get sick, your sickness will get diagnosed earlier. Anticipating problems thus allows you to preempt your issues, become more functional, create space in your life to brainstorm and as a result have new opportunities in your life to avail as and when you please.

Imagine that you go to school in a hilly area where you need to walk a lot and the terrain is rough. Your parents aren’t wealthy and the shoes you wear are a size too small for your feet. Your feet hurt all the time. One day you stop at the side of a lake, sit on a rock, take off your shoes and dip your feet in the cool water. How do you feel to have those uncomfortable shoes off your feet? Can you feel the cold water on the sore soles of your feet? That sensation that runs through your body when you forcefully but gently drag yourself out of any funk that you are stuck in is what leads your mind to relax. This is the best time to create something out of nothing. No one is ever impossibly stuck. You are only as desperate as you believe. You can always create viable options for yourself.

Here, I must point out the difference between hard work and smart work. You are building a house. You hire an architect, a contractor and labourers. The labourers work the hardest, put in the most amount of work yet get paid the least. The architect only makes the map of the house and oversees the construction of 10 houses simultaneously. And yet he gets paid the most. Of course, the architect works hard as well. But his education and his expertise allow him to work in much better conditions and to make much more money. Smart work.

The value of education cannot be ignored. I often hear people say things like “why does one actually need a degree to prove how smart they are?” The funny thing is that the people who say this are the ones that either don’t have degrees or have done nothing with the ones they have. And it is such people who will eventually get stuck at a certain stage. Whether we like it or not a degree helps in creating opportunities, not only for oneself but also for others. You are taken more seriously.

The thing to remember is there is much more to life than just misery and hardship. If you stare out into the horizon you may see a ditch full of dirty water and flies, the setting sun or a smiling old man on a park bench. It just depends on which angle you want to look at life from. The most effective way to succeed at life is to visualise the positive and create your success in your mind in a systematic organised manner. Visualisation may be just the first step but it is a crucial step. Once you imagine yourself there, you will actually get there — wherever ‘there’ might be’.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th,  2015.

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