Have you ever heard the following saying: “missed opportunities are like buses, there’s always a new one coming around.” I forgot the exact saying, to be honest, but it’s something like that. The message behind the quote is easy, don’t dwell on chances you missed out on because there will always be another one right around the corner. Well technically speaking of course. There is some truth to this saying and it gives people a lot of hope (doesn’t work, more on this in a later blogpost). It’s also fair to say that a lot of people have missed out on great opportunities. It’s even fair to say that a lot of people dwell on these past mistakes and never get over them. So this whole quote got me thinking. The saying kind is understandable because there will always be new opportunities. But what if there’s a part of life that’s get neglected by this principle?
What if this saying is not so great as it might sound?! Time to find out.
The curious case of missed opportunities.
So imagine that you miss out on an opportunity and start telling yourself that there will be another one right the corner. That might work don’t get me wrong but what if the next bus isn’t the right one?! What if the next bus takes you completely away from where you want to be (assuming you’re a goal-oriented person). What if the previous bus was the right one? So what if that was the bus to the right destination?!
I recently started reflecting on this because I’ve missed out on opportunities as well and sometimes I got better after it but sometimes it took me a lot of time to find the right bus. It took me for example 8 months and 2 days to get my second fight because I had missed out on opportunities and was trying to make my way through it. Only because I was waiting. This is a big problem with this saying according to me. It’s kind of makes you wait on the next bus/opportunity and it gives you a lot of hope. Because you’re waiting on that next golden shot. You’re basically in a passive mode the whole time. It gets even worse when you have the whole “I don’t care attitude”. Of course, you care! Claiming that you don’t care is the coward way out.
The coward way out…
There’s no such thing as winging it. You either do everything to make it work or you don’t. You can’t half-ass things, don’t get results and then go like “hey I was just going to try”. That’s the coward way out. The fact that you don’t put everything in makes me wonder if you’re just afraid to face yourself since putting everything in and not getting the wanted result sucks. It forces you to self- analyze and find out where you went wrong. It forces you to look in the mirror and be like “I’m 90% where I should be so now I have to focus on that last 10%”. That’s where most people go wrong. They just work harder on that 90% and become stagnant.
I mean imagine you’re like a ship that’s 90% ready. Just some holes in the bottom. Would you make that 90% better and start sailing? Of course not, you’re just gonna sink in the end. You’ve got to focus on the 10%.
Sometimes I wonder why I have to explain this to people. Working harder only works if you didn’t work hard in the first place. Otherwise, it’s the quickest way to burnout and disappointment.
When life gives you lemons…
You’ve got to squeeze. I go all out in everything I do, I try to make the most out of all the opportunities that life throws at me. Some of them have let me disappointed at first but in the end, they gave me valuable lessons that made me aware of what I was lacking and made me better in the long run. They were pointing out that I wasn’t 100% where I should have been (life is all about improving). This makes me come back to the saying. What if you miss out on an opportunity but never learn the lesson(s) attached to the missed chance? What if you just don’t get it at all? I mean relying on hope sounds a lot of fun but it doesn’t work. Hope is for people who are superstitious because what does hope do in the end?! It might make you feel better but that’s about it. It might even have the opposite effect. It’ll make you passive and will make sure that you never achieve what you wanted.
Because dreaming about a better life doesn’t get you a better life. it’ll make it worse! Just retweet that!
[ctt template=”8″ link=”Qgd3y” via=”yes” ]Because dreaming about a better life doesn’t get you a better life. it’ll make it worse![/ctt]The curious case of missed opportunities: a change of perspective.
What if we started acting on opportunities. Like all of the ones that make us get closer to our goal (whatever it is for you)? After you’ve done some research of course (don’t dive in headfirst). I mean look at it this way. Missing out sucks for everybody and in the end, it doesn’t benefit you. You sound like the people who go like “back in the day I could have invested in company X. I didn’t but I would have been a millionaire if I had”. This on its own tells me something. They keep dwelling on that one missed bus which they should have taken in the first place. Not a single opportunity that’ll be worth it down the line will be without risk. I repeat, not a single one of them! You’ll have to take a calculated risk every single time.
Some of them will pay off and some of them don’t which means that you’ll have the learn the accompanying lessons. Some of those risks you’ll have to take twice. Like quitting your job to go after your dreams. Many people had to do that more than once!
The curious case of missed opportunities.
The message here is simple: there is no such thing as missed opportunities, you just missed out on learning lessons because you didn’t act when you should have. You might have had something to lose when the opportunity arose but not acting on it made you lose way more. Because you didn’t gain anything from it and you feel bad as well in the long run. It’s like I said, some people never recover from this. Or do a lot of dumb things after that.
In the end, you’ll only regret the shots you didn’t take.
So what are you waiting for right now?!
The next bus?!
I’m asking you what excuse you’ll come up with this time to not act on an opportunity.
The excuse might make sense for you but I can guarantee you that people easily see through it. It makes a lot of sense for you because you don’t want to feel bad about the fact that you missed out.
Till next time
Alex
