On Vanishing Opportunities

Has it ever happened to you — an urge rising as if from somewhere deep inside, to do something right here, right now? It could be anything: a small foolishness, on the face of it, buying something, walking into an event, or just stepping off the planned route. Often these impulses show up in a new place, or on a trip. And in that moment you knew, for certain, that if you did it, you’d feel happy — even if only for a second.

And then… logic kicked in and started whispering: “Stop! Why do you need this? There’s no time right now, some other time! What will people think? You’ll still get the chance, just not now! It’s irrational, study the alternatives” — and a million more questions and self-persuasions like them.

So we put the desire off for later, maybe even made plans around it, or maybe gave it up entirely.

But then things happened that we couldn’t even influence, making that very urge either almost impossible to act on or far harder to reach: a pandemic, the war, a shift in the world’s paradigms, crises, borders closing — or something personal. Everyone has their own set of reasons.

And we’d remember, and regret: how little it would have taken to do it back then, and how hard it is to do now.

I’m full of such memories myself: of people I never met, words I never said, places I never reached, and even things whose purchase I put off until “some other time.”

Sometimes, as Stoicism teaches, it’s worth imagining that we’re living this day as our last — and letting ourselves do what we truly want, however irrational or absurd it might seem. What if the chance never comes again?

Here’s to all of us — to stop putting our honest desires off for later! 😎