Opportunities Are Out There... But You Can't Take Them All

First published on April 21, 2017

Opportunities are out there. If you set an intention for something, then those opportunities will start presenting themselves. 

For example, if you start looking for somewhere new to live, you will see 'to let' and 'for sale' signs appearing everywhere. (As an aside, there's a reason for this - a part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System.) But the same is true much more broadly. If you set your intention to have more partnerships, you will begin to see opportunities for partnerships appear. If you set an intention to be more sociable, those opportunities appear. If you set an intention to visit more local shops, you start to notice all the local shops. And if you take some of the opportunities that appear, there comes a point where you have to decide which new opportunities you have space for. There are infinite possibilities out there, infinite opportunities you could take. But you can't take them all. 

And what an amazing problem this is to have. What a problem of abundance. How far you've come from thinking you needed more partnerships, more social interaction, more chances to shop local, to thinking you have too many. Well done for coming this far. 

But how do we make those choices? I used to feel my way, asking 'Does it feel good to keep this opportunity progressing?' If so, progress it. If not, stop. But the standards by which I now judge those things have to change. When you're unemployed every job looks great. When you're lonely every personal interaction is so valuable. 

And we struggle to say no. We struggle with the guilt of moving from have not to having in abundance. 

Marie Kondo's system of reorganising your home rests on two concepts. First, what are the things which spark joy? And second, if things do not spark joy, let them go with gratitude. Perhaps those two concepts, sparks of joy and letting go with gratitude, are the answer to more than reorganising your home. For, after all, we do not just live in a world of material abundance. We live in a world of opportunity abundance, too.