Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
Scott Fitzgerald
Over the course of our professional and personal lives, we get several opportunities to achieve our goals. It is up to us what we make of those chances. It is not just the chances we grab that define our lives, but also the ones we are unable to make the most of, or the ones we miss altogether.
Life often gives us opportunities to change things for the better. The fact that you get an opportunity to do something is a matter of great pride in itself, for others may not be as fortunate as you for getting the same chance in life. It is, therefore, imperative for us to make these openings count. Whether taken or not, an opportunity has the potential to alter a person’s life. By capitalizing on such windows, we can improve our future prospects. On the other hand, missing these chances for whatever reason has its repercussions, too. For starters, we might rue the missed chance later on. Of course, this doesn’t need to happen immediately. It can actually take us years to evaluate where we stand in life and where we could have been had it not been for those wasted chances.
Honestly, this should be reason enough for a person to have a poacher’s instinct to grab any chances that come their way. That being said, it would be downright impractical to expect a person to accept every opportunity that is presented to them. It is safe to assume and accept that there will be a fair number of chances that you will (have to) let go of. The key here is to not regret such instances and continue living in the moment. This is, of course, easier said than done, but there is no point dwelling in the past glory while neglecting the countless possibilities that the present holds for us.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, popularly known as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist and short story writer. Hailed as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, Fitzgerald once wrote: “Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.” This quote is also generally attributed to the American screenwriter, Eric Roth.