Opportunity and Forced Opportunity

I’ve told myself that I’ve had lots of opportunities in my life. I’ve had opportunities to start mobile app companies, business intelligence services, IoT services, many of them the next big thing. I’ve had more opportunities than I could count.

But these never really were ‘opportunities’. The sewere money making schemes that someone with a lot more talent and resources could have achieved if they decided to make a move. To me, they were more like mirages.

I feel like many of us do this to ourselves: we see a problem that isn’t being addressed, create a loose business plan in our heads on how we would execute and convince ourselves that if we just did X and Y, we’d be rich. And then we hang that thought in the back of our heads and do nothing.

The truth is, there never really was a move for us to make. If we had ever taken the first few steps, we would found out that this was way harder and less open than it ever appeared in our mind. It just wasn’t for us. If we try to force opportunity, we learn this the hard way.

Real opportunity, our opportunity, is different. Real opportunity isn’t bashful. When it approaches, it knocks and it knocks hard. It hits you in the chest and throws up all the green lights telling you to act.

Most of the things I have called ‘opportunity’ in my life were just a shadow of the real thing. On the few times I’ve acted, it’s forced and unpleasant. Every step feels harder than the last, as life tries to tell you ‘no’.

Real opportunity pulls you ahead, commanding you not to stop. Not all the pieces may fit together in the begin, but there’s something irresistible making you want to go forward.