O – Opportunity Knocks!

What if opportunity were to knock again?

“Some say opportunity knocks only once, that is not true. Opportunity knocks all the time, but you have to be ready for it. If the chance comes, you must have the equipment to take advantage of it.” – Louis L’Amour

How many times has some sort of opportunity knocked at your door and you chose to ignore it? It might have been because you didn’t realize it was an opportunity, or you were afraid the opportunity would fail, or you didn’t have the time or money to invest in it? Did you have regrets?  

How many times did you take the risk and that opportunity paid off?

When I graduated from college, I couldn’t find a job as a teacher, so I got a job as a stockboy for J.C. Penney’s. After working there for 6 months, I was offered a job in the Shoreham-Wading River School District as an administrative aide to the new principal of the SWR Middle School, Dennis Littky. He had been my supervising professor in the education department at Stony Brook University but left Stony Brook to become the principal of this newly formed school. The salary offered me was less than I was making at J.C. Penney’s. Opportunity though was knocking. I chose to take the job because it put me into the education field which is where I wanted to be. Within a month of working there, I resigned because I was hired by another school district (Three Village) to be a permanent 6th grade leave replacement teacher for the remainder of the year (5 months). I was now a teacher. As the year came to an end, Three Village offered me a job in their new 5th-grade open classroom and Shoreham offered me a job as a 6th grade teacher in their new middle school. I picked correctly and ended up teaching in Shoreham-Wading River for 33 years until I retired. (Three Village actually closed the school that I was working in a few years after I left.) Opportunity knocked and I answered.

There were opportunities too that I chose not to take. For instance, I was one of the early users of Apple Computers (I owned an Apple //e) and also AppleLink Personal Edition (the future America Online) and had the opportunity when both went public, to invest in them. I knew very little about investing money and wasn’t sure they were going anywhere so I didn’t invest.  How many of you had those kinds of opportunities and didn’t take them? I’ll bet there are some regrets there.

Unfortunately, when opportunities come along they don’t always announce themselves to you.

Opportunity knocked.

And even when they do, you may not be in the right frame of mind or circumstances to take them.

So the question is, knowing what you know now if those opportunities were to revisit you, would you take them? What would be different in your life now, had you taken the opportunities when originally offered? Where would you be?

Are there circumstances now, having not taken the original opportunity, which impact this decision in a different way, given that it’s the same choice again?

For me, if I had taken the Apple offerings I would hope to be wealthier. But what changes would that choice have made on the career path I took? Would I have been as willing to retire (with a medical insurance buyout) as early as I did or even taught as long as I did? Would I have traveled more? Would I have purchased Islander season tickets? Serious questions.

On the other hand, I’m still a skeptic investor and somewhat concerned about the unknown and taking financial risks. Given the same opportunity to invest in a startup company that had potential future gains, I probably would make the same decision I did then. At least this time I wouldn’t be making the decision on my own. Being single, when some of my opportunities came knocking, then and being married now certainly would affect my/our decisions.

Of course, throughout my life, there were many opportunities not taken that I should have. Continuing with piano lessons when I was younger to improve my musical skills, pursuing my desire to become a published writer, talking to my parents and relatives more when they were alive to learn more about my ancestors, learning german and traveling to Germany to find out more about my family’s past, and not going to France to visit my brother before he became ill, to mention a few.  

Opportunity came and went. Though some of those opportunities may come back again. I still could publish. I still could travel. Some I know have passed for good. That begs the question, those that do come back or new ones that show their faces, what will I decide to do?  Your guess is as good as mine. Hopefully, I’ll make the right choice.

Now what if time travel becomes a reality? Can I go back and influence myself to take those opportunities the first time? Time will tell.