There are opportunities

You get more of them or less of them

And then you succeed at taking advantage of them, or fail to take advantage of them

 

We often fail to take advantage of our opportunities

That’s because we don’t view them as opportunities

We don’t view them as opportunities because we don’t view what they entail as valuable

We don’t view it as valuable because we VIEW SOMETHING ELSE AS VALUABLE

Our grand plans and goals and whatever we noticed someone else doing

 

So we’re most likely to take advantage of opportunities that align closely with our goals

But those will occur far less often than opportunities in general

Because life doesn’t care about your goals

The world doesn’t care about your goals

Randomness, CHAOS, doesn’t give a fuck about your goals

 

Some are worse at it than others

Some will only do something if it’s EXACTLY as planned

Any excursion, any Plan B, anything but the thing — is rejected

This of course makes for massive underperformance

(albeit they at least compensate for some of it by the extra focus they gain from this rigid tunnel-vision)

 

In the worst case you reject EVEN the opportunities which align with your goals, align directionally…

…because those don’t align with your SPECIFIC, RIGID PLAN

E.g. you get an opportunity to actually further your career by like 10 steps… but you’re like, “this is NOT the next step! Pass…!”

It’s sometimes called self-sabotage

Indeed you have a VISION for yourself too

If you get too attached to that vision of yourself REALISING that vision, slowly, indefinitely — you’ll block the final realisation of it, the final acquisition of those goals you were originally after

 

Finally,

Some people notice this failure of people to take advantage of their opportunities

And they conclude that SUCCESS is BUT a matter of OPENING oneself to those OPPORTUNITIES, this ABUNDANCE, if you will

 

This of course omits the fact that to take advantage of an opportunity — you must first GET that opportunity

Again: we get more opportunities than we see

But that still doesn’t mean we all get those unbelievable opportunities that would immediately TRANSFORM our lives — and we’re just too blind to see

This is a common mistake

 

The answer is not to get bitter, obviously. Then you truly become this person who is ungrateful, while wasting every opportunity coming their way

But nor is it to get reckless, or arrogant, or preachy, about some magic ability to take advantage of every opportunity

Again: If you’re NOT getting an opportunity — you can’t take advantage of it

 

Finally, life is complex

There can be a good reason why you stubbornly go along your path — and ignore opportunities around you

There can be real drama of opportunity cost going on, where there’s so many opportunities but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to decide which one to choose

 

This is why I always recommend maximising exposure to randomness

Asymmetric randomness — where costs are limited — and upside is potentially large

This is absolutely crucial

And it is also how you actually train the kind of open mind necessary to notice opportunities