A Chance or an Opportunity?

Two older couples were riding in a car. The men in front and the women in back. Their car was behind a slower car. They couldn’t get around. The wife of the driver finally asked,” when are you going to pass that car? You’ve had several chances.” He answered, “I’m not looking for a chance. I’m looking for an opportunity.” While on the subject of driving, let me tell you about another driver I knew. He was my uncle. He didn’t marry until he was in his fifties; he was in love with an older lady who was an absolutely lovely lady. But she was taking care of her parents, and wouldn’t marry until they passed. The day finally [[more]] came. But before it did, he loved to travel. He also chose me as his traveling companion. He seemed to enjoy buying all the meals, snacks, and drinks. Movie tickets-everything. I was in a movie with him when I met the lady who would become my wife . But his driving caused me to age 10 years. He drove so overly cautious. For example. We would be driving along a country road and see a car one half a mile ahead of us and two thirds mile to our right. He would spot the car and say “Now I wonder what he’s gonna do? “ Then he’d start slowing down. The closer we got, the slower he would go. Finally, out of exasperation the car driver pulled onto our road. Then my uncle would say, “See there, you can never predict what they’re gonna do!” We never had a wreck but I have no idea how many we caused. This got me to thinking about opportunity. It does not take much to get me off on a tangent. As I was thinking about opportunity I asked myself: “What is an opportunity? What is the definition of ‘opportunity’?” So I went to my dictionary and that’s what you’re going to have to do. A person was given the challenge to draw a picture of opportunity. He drew a picture of an old man who was completely bald except for one long lock of hair right in front. When asked to explain he said, “Opportunity is like this old man. If you see him coming, he is easy to grab onto. But if you wait until he gets by, there is no way you can latch on. There is a fine line between a chance and an opportunity. When something comes along that looks like an opportunity , you may not know for sure until you’ve invested a lot of time and money. I have four brothers. All of us have been entrepreneurs. Notice, I didn’t say successful, but we were always looking. I have a book that lists 57 statements or examples on opportunity. I could reproduce enough of them to really impress you. But I’m not going to.