Sometimes, the Moment Arrives. When it Does, the Question is: Are We Ready?

First published on November 25, 2020

Sometimes, the moment arrives. When it does, the question is: are we ready?

Not ready as in 'perfectly finished'. Ready as in 'prepared'. Ready as in 'practised and competent enough to take advantage of this moment, this very moment here and now'.

Read the story of anyone who has achieved extraordinary success, anyone who stands out, and there are always a series of moments of chance, a series of moments of coincidence, a series of moments of luck. Luck is involved, heavily involved.

But luck isn't the whole story. Because for each of those people, they had to be ready: ready as in 'practised and competent enough to take advantage of this exact moment, this very moment here and now.'

That happened for the England footballer Marcus Rashford, thrown into the Manchester United first team at a moment's notice after a teammate was injured in the warm-up for a Europa League game. He was ready. And he took that moment, scoring twice. Then, on the back of that performance, he started against Arsenal the following weekend. I remember where I was, in a bar on Exmouth Market, as he scored twice again leading United to what felt at the time an unlikely defeat of Arsenal.

Rashford might have ended up where he is now anyway, but not everyone gets those moments. Rashford did. And he was ready, practised. Competent enough to take advantage of that exact moment.

The psychologist Robert Holden was invited onto Oprah. When he was there, he was ready. The conversation flowed so much that Oprah kept sending away the people who wanted to move Holden on and move the show on to a different segment. His work might have grown without it, but he was ready, for that moment.

These moments will come along for all of us, and so the question is: what are we practising? What are we becoming more competent at so that, if the universe presents us with that moment, that chance, we can take it?

The Greek word for the kind of time where opportunity is great is Kairos (or at least, could be said to be). Kronos is linear time, Kairos is something quite different. It is the time when you don't need to put in linear effort to get linear output. When things can increase exponentially not incrementally.

Jordan Hall, speaking to Rebel Wisdom earlier this year, pointed out that the pandemic is like that. That, indeed, the ongoing collapse of our major institutions is like that. We are living in Kairos, or at least some of us are. In Kronos, we need to get ready. Ready for those moments of Kairos, when things can change.

We need to practise what matters to us. If we want to have the greatest positive impact that we can, we might want to zoom that practise in on the unique mix of talents and experiences that only we have.

And we need to practise courage. Because in that moment when the world aligns, we need to be ready to step up, to take the stage, to run out onto the pitch, to grasp the opportunity that is in front of us.

We can't control the outcomes in our lives, but we can control the process. We can control what we practise, what we get ourselves ready for, so that when the opportunity comes along - whether a job, a platform, a romantic partner, a move overseas - we are ready.

Not ready as in 'perfect'. Not ready as in 'perfectly finished'. Ready as in 'prepared'. Ready as in 'practised and competent enough to take advantage of this moment, this very moment here and now'.