Opportunity Is an Ocean

Sometimes things happen in life as if the universe itself were opening a new path in front of us. At times they happen against all our usual logic and rational thinking. We get sent signs — and often the kind we simply can’t miss.

And then something remarkable arrives. It might be a business idea, a good offer, a new acquaintance, an unexpected turn. We feel a lift inside, a surge of strength, inspiration, energy. People call it a chance in life.

Imagine an ocean of possibility, knowledge and experience stretched out in front of you. You take the first step into the water, and a wave of new experience rolls over you, with results that feel fantastic. You want to take the next step — but you’ve never swum in an ocean before, and you’re afraid. Ahead of you is the unknown. What happens next? Are you ready for it? What will this step ask you to change?

Or maybe you even start to feel shy: “All of this, for me? Do I deserve such abundance?” The body wants to move forward, but the mind starts asking more and more questions.

And right at this point many people can’t handle their own doubts and run, excusing themselves with lines like “it’s good enough already, it won’t get better than this,” “this isn’t for me,” or “I’m scared.”

There’s even a study on mental blocks: people from low-income families, once they found themselves at all-inclusive resorts, were too embarrassed to take full plates at the buffet, limiting themselves to small portions even when they could easily afford more.

The greatest regret is to be handed your chance and not see it through. What if it only comes once? What if part of the point of a life was in opening that chance fully? What will we tell ourselves when our hour comes? Will we remember how, one day, we wanted so badly to step forward and didn’t dare? What had the world been preparing for us just past that step?

It hurts me to talk with people who tell the story of their missed chance with bitterness, sadness, regret, sometimes with tears in their eyes, having made their peace with the fact that once, long ago, they let their moment slip.

And the most successful, happiest people are the ones who managed to become “whales” in an ocean like that. One day they accepted the gift from the universe, didn’t stop at the shore, and grew their success.

But common sense still applies: throw yourself into the water too fast and you can drown.

It also happens that, inspired by the first results, someone decides the whole world is now at their feet, that there’ll be plenty more oceans like this one, and… they cheapen the chance they were given. Yes, other oceans do exist, and they’re beautiful in their own way — they’re just meant for someone else. You can thank fate and focus on your own, or you can keep splashing the water out as you leap from one ocean to the next, and end up with nothing.

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.”

I’ve come across plenty of stories where a giant opportunity opened up in front of a businessman, he started generating real cash flow inside it, but at the first signs of success he ran off and poured that money into a swarm of other business ideas, invested in offers coming at him from every side, and stretched himself so thin that in the end he lost a lot — or everything. I’ve been there myself. What if instead we concentrated where it’s already working, and stopped scattering our effort and resources?

If you’re in many places at once, you’re nowhere. “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” — Seneca.

Some opportunities open up only once in a life, and it’s on us to decide whether to walk the path of seeing them through fully or to drop them halfway. I also believe that if the moment comes when we need to say “stop,” the world will give us another sign — one impossible to miss.

Here’s to all of us finding our chance and seeing it through to the end, without fear and without regret! 😎