The Opportunity

There is a saying that states “Opportunity only knocks once.” But I say that opportunity comes to us every day, each moment of our lives. We just have to have our eyes open. Much of the time I don’t have my eyes open and I don’t see the opportunity that presents itself right in front of me. I go around in the present as if I were in the past, with all my traumas of the past, my unresolved history. So of course I don’t see the opportunity of the present moment because actually I am not a hundred percent in the present moment. What do I do? I react from a page of my past which in reality has nothing to do with the opportunity that life has presented to me right now.

Is it complicated? Well, it’s as complicated as I make it. If I lived totally in the present moment, nothing would be complicated. Each problem or issue that life presents us is an opportunity to learn, grow, mature, get a little bit closer to enlightenment, to be free of suffering. But I have chosen to suffer instead of taking the opportunity to learn. I wonder why. “Ego-drama” grabbed this opportunity to learn and kicked out reason and serenity. “Ego-drama” loves to dominate the opportunity life presents to us and change it into a big mess. I imagine that “Ego-drama” is an old bad guy jumping with glee on a hilltop shouting, “I beat you! I beat you!”

If I understand the issue or problem at hand, next time, Mr. Ego-drama will not beat me, because I am going to see the opportunity for what it is and act accordingly, in the moment with compassion and with understanding, in other words, accept the opportunity to learn.

There is a story in the book by Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth that I like a lot and it has helped me a lot, even if a little late. It is in chapter seven, titled “Is that so?” It’s about a monk in Japan.

That’s my new goal, to be like that monk.

Soy Lorena.
12/19/07