Opportunity only knocks once

Opportunity only knocks once. It is a saying, or a proverb that I am sure you have been told, or have at the very least heard several times in your life. Simply Google quotes, or images of quotes with these words and you could be very well be convinced that it is the truth Opportunity Will Only Knock Once, and the message you are expected to get from this is Do Not Pass Up This Opportunity! If you do, you may never get this chance again.

What is it that has made this proverb so popular? Perhaps it is a way to help those of us who are scared to take a leap into the unknown be braver than we would normally be? Perhaps it is a way for companies to manipulate us in to doing what they want or buy what they are selling? Perhaps it pushes us out of the comfort zone and can potentially lead us to the happiness we seek? If we only truely have one opportunity then it is most certainly harder to say no.

We hate regret, we try and make good choices, we strive to live our lives with a moral code, and also take up opportunities so that we can look back and hopefully say “I have no regrets’. Another saying you will be familiar with is the one about “regretting the things we didn’t do, more than the ones we did do.” It is another phrase that also makes us believe we would be foolish to pass up the opportunity in front of us. I can almost liken it to someone wise standing in front of me saying that I have a choice to make.

 . . . . . Picture this if you will, in front of you stands a wise elder with a golden key. They tell you that there is a great choice in front of you, that you are in a critical point in your life where the path you choose will lead to happiness, or regret. If you take the golden key, (the metaphor in this story for the  opportunity), you will have no regrets, no matter what happens down the path that this key opens at least you will know that you took the opportunity and for that you will be rewarded. On the other hand, if you choose to forgo the golden key you will continue down the path you are already on, and you will ultimately always wonder what could have been, you will have regret.

Given the above scenario we would feel pretty foolish to say, ‘no thanks I don’t want that key‘, would we? What I am questioning here though, is whether this proverb is really just a manipulation of the mind. If we turn down opportunities does it always automatically mean that we will regret it? Is it really true that opportunity only knows once?

It is almost similar to the debate over Free Will versus Fate. If there is Fate, then had I not agreed to go out for dinner the night I met my (now) husband, then Fate would have had us meet another time, right? So surely if there is Fate then opportunity wouldn’t only knock once, it would keep knocking until I finally surrendered to my Fate. It is all very romantic to believe in fate or destiny, but I would like to think I have free will, that I make my own decisions, but that is another whole topic.

If an opportunity only knocks once then how do you explain people who break up, get back together, break up and get back together and then live happily ever after? How do you explain my pesty ex who tried to get me back over and over again? It was an opportunity to resume a relationship more than once, yet I wish that opportunity had only knocked one and then got the point straight away when I said no the first time! How do you explain someone  gets offered a job and yet they turn it down and then six months later get offered it again and decide to take it? Every year, every day, and if we want to be more precise, every moment we are presented with choices, with opportunities. Life is full of opportunities and I personally don’t think we are only offered an opportunity once.

In every given moment we are presented with opportunity, what if it isn’t those big opportunities that truly matter like we have been taught, or lead to believe, what if it is the simple choices we make that matter the most? And what if the biggest opportunities we are presented with are in fact made up of all the tiniest moments that we barely noticed? Any given moment is like a spec of sand, so tiny that it can easily be missed amongst the billions of grains of sand, or the larger rocks and boulders in our lives. Yet those tiny moments and continued choices make up our fabric, and sewn together make us who we are, they are the stories of our life. Each moment is an opportunity to follow our heart, to show kindness, to stop and look around and take in all we have to be grateful for.

Each moment is an opportunity to live with compassion, to study what we love, to tell people we care, to be gentle with ourselves, and to be true to our authentic self.

Today you have already had opportunities present themselves, perhaps it was an opportunity to be kinder to yourself, maybe compliment someone, or thank someone for making you day easier. You have had the opportunity to be angry, sad, grateful, compassionate, cruel, or happy, and all the moments of today have rolled into this day, moments and opportunities passed without even being aware.

Life is full of opportunities and when those big ones present if it feels right, if it is what you have been waiting for then go ahead and grab it! If on the other hand you are looking back and saying I wish I had taken that opportunity that I didn’t, then stop wasting time on regret, learn what you can from how you feel and go out and seek a new way to bring forth that opportunity again.

It is a state of mind, we chose whether to live with regret, do I regret things, yes I do! Despite the saying that we only regret the things we didn’t do, for me this isn’t always the case. I deeply regret some things that I did do, but did I learn from them, grow from them, yes of course I did. So would I change them of given the opportunity? If it means changing who I am now, or where I am now? Then No. Without those regrets I wouldn’t be the me I am proud to be now. It doesn’t stop me regretting them though. Regret is a reminder for me to never allow others to manipulate me again, a reminder that I am in control of my choices. I am not crippled by my regrets I am empowered by them.

It is just a statement, just words, Opportunity Only Knocks Once, words meant to keep us on our toes, to make sure we don’t miss out on the big things, but if you missed an opportunity, or if you are faced with an opportunity right now just remember that you make your own opportunities, you are capable of amazing things, and if you want an opportunity to come around again then you can help make that happen, even if it is slightly different, it can still lead to happiness. In each and every little moment you are capable of opportunities for happiness.

Welcome to your life, what are you going to choose to believe? Do opportunities only come once? Are we able to create second chances? Share with me your thoughts I would love to hear from you.

Mac