The Opportunity Bird

We all know birds. Animals that, if not tamed, you will likely never see again. Opportunities are like birds. They don’t wait for you, you wait for them. And when they come, you have to be prepared, because you have to have the required tools to tame and capture this bird, tools like knowledge, physical training, and tactics. As you wait for the bird to fly by, you grind in the shadows, sharpening your tools, shining your cage, and preparing for the day.

You may not be able to relate to this, but if you give a bit of thought, you’ll realize the numerous times we have lost opportunities. Some of them may seem minor, and harmless to lose, like that one sale your favourite designer brand had on one of their bags and you missed, but some of them can be huge, like having NASA recruit you and you were not prepared for the interview. Minor losses will be easily forgotten by us, as they are not worth remembering, but some large ones, well, they may be the Stresemann’s Bristlefront of opportunities. These opportunities, if you capture them, good for you as you’ll likely benefit from them for the rest of your life. But if you miss them, well, you may live your life as if nothing has changed, or live with the shadow of regret for the rest of your life.

There is a story I thought of for quite some time and I would like to share. Continue reading and it’s in the paragraph below. Note that all the characters were fictional and the “I” in this case is the narrator of the story. And here starts the story:

I was intrigued by space. How mystical, wonderful, beautiful yet scary it is. Wynorrific. And with such an interest you would think I spent a lot of my time studying space science, studying the complexity of space right? Well, not exactly.

You see, at a very young age, my parents were very busy. They never had time to be with me, to be normal parents that took their sons out for camping trips. So naturally, they did not have any time to help me pursue my interests. And as most kids do, I got stuck with video games and comics. Funny thing though, most of the genres of comics I read and video games I played were related to space, but naive as I was, I didn’t know that those in-game fictional information had nothing to do with the actual reality of space science. But hey, there I was, spending the rest of my childhood like this: Wake up, have breakfast, school, get home, do homework, play video games, have dinner, and then sleep.

You might have thought my grades were bad. They weren’t. Somehow, every time I got lucky in assessments, dictations and exams. Somehow, I managed to score first in the whole grade for two consecutive years. Somehow.

Then that one day came. I was studying in one of the finest schools in the UK, and NASA decided to visit. They were looking for students to be potential astronauts or space science engineers in the future and to provide the best training for them. After pulling some strings and sweet-talking some teachers, the school decided to let me join the interview process. NASA directed the interview to our school, so only students in our school had the chance to participate. Since only two people joined the selection process, NASA had turned the interview into more of a competition, where one joins while the other gets eliminated. I was notified that I was graced with the honour of joining the selection process. We had one month to prepare.

Here comes the problem. We were not only given the chance to prepare but later on, I would be told that the examination paper would be made with minimum difficulty. A naive me thought that everything I had learned from games and comics was the gist of space science, and I managed to convince myself that I was a pro and needed no more studying. Well, I was about to find out how wrong I was.

Well, the day came. My competition was named Lea, and she identifies as a female. I would be later told that she had studied through the night, ground through the day, and worried sick that I would be better than her. As we entered the room of examination, she was so nervous she looked like she was about to vomit, and I looked relaxed and confident. The papers were handed out, and both our expressions were exchanged. She had practised, prepared, and sharpened her tools to swiftly catch this bird, and me, well, I sat there looking at the paper, thinking of how ridiculously hard this paper was, how disappointed my teachers would be, how hard my best friends would laugh at me, how sullen the frown on my principal would be. And I sat there, thinking, staring, struggling, hopeless. That was how I wasted away another precious three hours of my life.

Another month passed. Letters announcing our results have been mailed to Lea and my consecutive dorms. A letter of applause to Lea, and undoubtedly, a letter of disappointment and encouragement to mine. I didn’t even have to touch the letter to know; the shadow of the bird which completely missed my trap told me.

Lea and I met each other afterwards. And granted, she looked ecstatic. Ecstasy was flowing off her. We had a brief conversation, chatted about the weather, discussion of school lives, and words of encouragement (to me, that is).

Age 26. Lea had graduated from astronomy school, and I had just been fired the second time. My boss fired me for drinking too much, and constantly being late for work. I received a letter from Lea, saying she was leaving for Jupiter to become the first female astronaut to land on Jupiter. In about a year.

Age thirty. Lea was on Jupiter and had successfully found life on one of its moons, Europa. I received the news as I was having my morning coffee, reading the newspaper and preparing to start a new day as a school janitor.

Age forty. Lea returned to Earth. I tried to get into night school but was rejected.

Age fifty. Lea got a promotion to the head of NASA’s department of Human Exploration and Operations. I got a promotion to the head of the cleaning janitor in my particular school.

And now, I’m 60. Lea and I had completely lost touch. I doubt she even remembers the existence of me. And I sit here, sipping coffee, watching the news of Lea retiring as a multi-billionaire on the TV, wondering why the person on TV isn’t me. Why have I fallen to where I am now? The place Lea now takes, her position, fame, wealth, it could’ve all been mine. And it should’ve. It should’ve. But why isn’t it?

And now we return to reality. We’re out of the story now. To answer the question above, we just have to return to the life of our protagonist. One who never sharpened his tools. One who never once studied or prepared. And it’s sad, isn’t it? A life wasted, just like that. One who never explored its full potential. Our protagonist got lucky. He had the biggest opportunity ever to fall on one’s head. And he wasted it, as he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready.

A lot of stories come with morals. We may not like them, but they are important. Why else were fables invented? And so, here is my moral, one I have emphasized and repeated multiple times: One must be prepared to grasp opportunities. You wait for them, they don’t wait for you.