Chaplain’s Column
Are you prepared for your opportunity?
Are you ready? Are you prepared for your opportunity?
My wife and I have been blessed with five sons. Later this month, numbers four and five will turn 13. When the last two came in the form of twins, my wife declared, “when they start coming two at a time, it is time to quit.”
Not too long ago, I came home one evening and surprised the twins with an opportunity to go out for the evening and get ice cream.
One went to put on his shoes to go and headed to the door while the other sulked that he had homework to finish.
After investigating how both boys taking the same classes with the same teachers and one had homework and the other did not, I discovered that the one with his shoes on, standing at the door had completed his assignments in class when the teacher gave time at the end of the day. The one sulking spent that same time playing.
As I headed out the door with just one twin. I overheard the mumbling of the other say, why is he so lucky?
Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks.
If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom and gloom pessimist.
Just to see what would happen, on the twins’ birthday their father loaded the pessimist’s room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist’s room he loaded with horse manure.
That night the father passed by the pessimist’s room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly.
“Why are you crying?” the father asked.
“Because my friends will be jealous, I’ll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I’ll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken,” answered the pessimist twin.
Passing the optimist twin’s room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. “What are you so happy about?” he asked.
To which his optimist twin replied, “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, “Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.”
When opportunity knocks, will you be ready? Is opportunity given to you? Or, is it something you give to yourself? Does opportunity present itself? Or, does it happen when you make yourself prepared?
“The word opportunity comes from the Latin term “opportunitas,” which is composed of two other terms: “ob,” meaning toward, and “portus,” meaning port. This word came about in the realm of navigation, where sailors used the phrase “ob portus” to denote the best combination of wind, current, and tide to sail to port.
However, the only way to seize such weather conditions was if the vessel’s captain had already sighted the port of destination. Knowing the weather conditions without knowing the destination was useless. Therefore, a ship was in a state of “opportunitas” when its captain had decided where to go and knew how to get there.”
I have heard it said, “It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.”
I knew a gunnery sergeant who would often remind his trainees, “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready!”
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Could it be the difference between lucky and unlucky people is all in our perspective?
Maybe luck isn’t just about being at the right place at the right time, but also about being open to and ready for new opportunities.
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