Missed Opportunities
If you really think about it, life is full of opportunities. There are virtually unlimited opportunities for each of us. Each letter that I type as I write this is an opportunity to write something different. If we could open up our minds to all of the opportunities that each of us has, it might be enlightening, it might be overwhelming or it might give us hope. We even have the opportunity to decide how we are going to react.
Every book we see is an opportunity to learn something new. Every intersection that we pass is an opportunity to go a different direction and experience something new. When we walk through a crowd, every person we see can be viewed as an opportunity to have a new friend or have a new enemy. Each time we see someone of the opposite sex, nature has programmed us to evaluate him or her as an opportunity for a sexual encounter. Some have been able to internalize this better than others.
The Internet has provided us with further opportunities to learn things, see things and meet people. How we go about making our choices of what to look at, what to learn, whom to meet, and where to go is, for most of us, an unconscious process that we ignore or take for granted. This is unfortunate, because it is the most important process in our life. It is the process that determines the life we have.
Every moment of every day, we make choices that determine the path our life will follow. It was once said that when our life is nearing its end, we will probably regret what we didn't do, rather than what we did do -- missed opportunities. There are so many paths through life that it is amazing what could have been for each of us. The mystery of the road less traveled has lured many to paths of greatness and others to destruction or misery, so you would think that we would put at least some thought into how we make our continuous stream of choices.
I have favorite places to eat and favorite items that I always seem to order. Is this wise behavior? There are so many different places and things to eat that by restricting myself to what I have liked best is very limiting. The expression, "So many women, so little time," can be applied to food, books, places, things, and opportunities. It can also bring lots of turmoil to a marriage.
I don't regret any of the people I have met, the places I have gone, or the relationships that I have had. I do regret not having met some people I saw, not going to lots of places I could have visited, and not having all the relationships that I wanted to have. Perhaps this is why people believe in an afterlife. There just isn't time in this one to do all and see all. We would need an infinite number of lives to do that. We have only one life, so choose consciously and wisely.
I think I'll go to the mall and look for opportunities.