<Author>Michael</Author>
<Topic>Oppotunity and Success</Topic>
<Source></Source>
<Nationality>USA</Nationality>
Opportunities do not come often. When they do come, they are not realized on their own, but the difference lies between our successful past experience and the ways that we treat these opportunities. We have a saying in the US: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". This means that often we intend to take full advantage of opportunities which come our way, but for one reason or another we do not really take advantage of them. Confucious said that "a step of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." A modem Chinese proverb says to cross a difficult river, we must begin with a single step. When I am more likely to be successful, it is because I keep at the task over a long time. When I am less likely to be successful, I haven't given the necessary effort required to make the opportunity achieve the needed results.
As a father and grandfather, I have striven to be a good father and grandfather. Sometimes the long distance from them means that I can't be as effective a parent or grandparent as I would like. As a university professor, I have made my best efforts over many years to continue to be a successful professor. Sometimes, when I feel rushed, I have prepared less well for classes than I should have done. In these cases, my long experience might still help me to achieve success. However, if the material is specific to the class and I don't know the material well myself, then is unlikely that I will correctly impart the knowledge for my students so that they can also use it well. As I do not have a very good ear for Chinese and I can speak to my students always in English, I have not been persistent in trying to learn Chinese and my pronunciation and vocabulary levels remain quite low. Here is an opportunity that I am missing because I haven't taken the time to learn the language seriously.
Thus, I find that I am quite successful as some opportunities become available to me, but much less successful when I fail to be persistent in taking advantage of them.
