Opportunity knocks only once!

"I regret I didn't study for a law degree at the university. I wanted to earn money like my friends and joined a bank after my A/Level examination results."

"I missed a chance of going abroad for higher studies. Some of my friends advised me to follow an external degree course. Today I feel sorry for myself."

These are two of the laments I heard from those who missed opportunities. They say that an opportunity knocks on your door only once. If you do not accept it, you lose it.

Life offers us many opportunities to progress in our chosen field of activity. Some of these opportunities are really big, others may be insignificant. The opportunities can either be positive or negative. When you are too young to decide what is good for life, someone may invite you to a party where you could drink and smoke. This is a negative opportunity. If you fall for it under peer pressure, you will regret it later.

If someone invites you to join a debating team, that is a positive opportunity. When I was working in a government department in Colombo, somebody advised me to join the YMCA Forum.

It was a great opportunity to improve my speech and debating skills. It also taught me how to tolerate opposite views without losing my cool. Such opportunities are essential to life. By accepting positive opportunities, you bring personal enrichment to your life.

Unknown to many, we are presented with many positive and negative opportunities almost daily. If you open a daily or weekly newspaper, you will come across many opportunities to enrich your knowledge and sharpen your skills. There are many universities and private institutions offering various courses of studies. These should not be missed if you wished to succeed in life.

Unfortunately, media offer us many negative opportunities. Advertisers use all kinds of gimmicks to create a need in you so that you buy their goods or services. Some people claim that they can teach English in one day! Sometimes, employers offer big salaries without stating what the jobs are. Some medications are promoted vigorously only to change your complexion! These are negative opportunities you should avoid.

It is tragic that we do not respond to positive opportunities. We have our own mental blocks that prevent us from accepting challenges. Sometimes, we are indifferent to the opportunities around us. When we wish to follow a course of study, we find that we have no time for such activities. Or we might get involved in something else that saps our energy.

Opportunities come to those who have a large number of interests. If you work in a government office or a bank and do not get involved in other areas such as music, arts, literature or sports, you will never get an opportunity to succeed in life. You may have heard of doctors showing a keen interest in music.

Those who grab every positive opportunity lead successful lives. If you really wish to enjoy life, go beyond your comfort zones and experience life in its myriad forms. Those who thus respond to positive opportunities remain energetic because they are ready to change track and experiment. They also know that life without challenges is dull and boring.

Psychologists tell us that fear of failure is a major obstacle to accepting challenges. If you are gripped by the fear of failure, you will find it difficult to proceed in any direction. Fear of failure is often connected with fear of criticism and fear of rejection. Such people, even if they win, will eventually end in failure.

Opportunities are galore for those who are willing to learn new subjects and skills. Most of them learn new subjects for the sheer pleasure of it. There are many students who learn dead languages such as Latin, Pali, Sanskrit or Greek. They would tell you that learning means keeping the mind open and active to receive all kinds of experience.

One of the best informed men I ever knew was a man who used to roam all over the island on his bicycle. The grey-haired man with a long beard had no fixed abode. But he used to carry a load of books in his knapsack. It was a delight to speak to him because he would quote from Shakespeare and Dryden as if he was a university lecturer. The knowledge he had on history, international affairs, geography and literature was amazing. What is more he knew the island as thoroughly as a surgeon knows the human body. He loved it and understood it.