Live The Good Life: How To Know And Make Opportunities Of A Lifetime

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.” – Orison Swett Marden

Time is your most precious commodity, and opportunities abound for everyone in equal measure. All you have to do is to seize the moment and work it.

However, you have to believe you have the ability to make something out of yourself. If you do, you can make the most of the time and opportunities available to you to achieve The Good Life. Otherwise, life will simply pass you by while you wait for your “big break.”

You can argue that some people are more attractive, more intelligent, and luckier. That is not true at all.  You just have to look at the lives of successful people in history, like legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, who said, “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.” He encountered many obstacles along the way, but he didn’t let them stop him.

Opportunities abound

You are living in interesting times.

No other time in history has so many opportunities been available to anyone to know and make. Many of the obstacles that existed as recently as two decades ago have been eliminated, mostly because of the Internet.

For example, if you want to start a retail business 20 years ago, you needed a lot of capital. Nowadays, you can start an online store without any capital, and if you choose to dropship, you don’t even need inventory.

Are you a writer and want to be published? You can self-publish anything at any time. If you need a professional writer or graphic editor to fill in gaps in your skills, that is easy as making a quick search.

Even when your dreams have nothing to do with the Internet, all the obstacles you will encounter is the same for most everyone else. The only difference is the size of the obstacles you imagine in your head.  In most cases, you are your worst enemy because you believe you can’t do it, or you’re just sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike. Life doesn’t work that way.

You can’t just sit around waiting for something to happen. YOU have to make it happen. Lucille Ball said, “Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work – and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”

Happiness is not a goal

Many people pursue happiness like it’s a goal, but happiness is not a goal. Children can be happy without achieving anything, and mostly because they have a simple appreciation for the most ordinary things.

Anthropologist Ashley Montagu said, “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.”

Nobody is or should be happy all the time. Achieving your goals can make you happy for a while, but the pursuit of happiness should not be the end-all and be-all of your efforts, or you will always be dissatisfied.

Instead of bemoaning the fact that not every moment of your life is happy, be grateful that you can tell the difference. German inventor Frederick Koenig said, “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”

Life is a long journey with many bumps along the way. You learn to appreciate the parts that are smooth sailing more because of those bumps. Enjoy those moments when they happen, but don’t spend your life chasing after them. Savor every moment, happy or sad, and be grateful you are alive to feel it.

Believe in yourself

People around you tend to project their own beliefs, insecurities, and disappointments on to you, telling you that your dreams are impossible. Ignore them, and listen to your inner voice telling you that it is possible.

Your success is solely dependent on your belief in yourself, which is the first step to a good life. If you believe you can do something, then you are more likely to accomplish it successfully. You don’t have to be born with the traits of success to be one, as long as you believe you can and you are willing to put in the work.

Actress Ashley Madekwe describes it very well, “It often looks like an actor’s had a big break out of nowhere, but in reality, they’ve been working their way up, little by little, for a while.”

The fact is, the good life means different things for different people. The one thing in common is the ability to know and make opportunities of a lifetime to live a life you want.

American author Helen Keller, who was born deaf and blind, made a good life for herself despite her limitations. She has this to say about opportunities:

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”

Takeaway

You can do it. Whatever you want to do with your life is achievable if you:

• Believe you can do it
• Know and make the opportunities you need to make it happen
• Do the work
• Keep on going even when it’s hard
• Learn from your mistakes
• Keep an open mind
• Enjoy every moment of the journey

Remember that life is a journey, not a destination. Every second you spend doing the best you can is time well spent, and you already have a good life without even knowing it.

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Main image credit: phuquocisland.org

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