Opportunity

By Mrs. A.J. Wilder

“Grasp opportunity by the forelock, for it is bald behind,” says the old proverb. In other words, we must be ready to meet and take advantage of opportunities as they come, or we will lose the chance. We cannot have any hold on them once they have passed by. Nor is time and endeavor spent in preparing ourselves ever wasted, for if we are ready, opportunity is sure to come.

President Wilson is one of the finest examples of a man who was prepared for the opportunity that came to him. In studying his life one comes to feel that he must have decided, while yet a boy, to become President and carefully prepared himself for it, so exactly did his life, up to the time, fit him for the position.

Virtually all his life Wilson was a student of government. He was nearly 30 when his academic training was ended, then a two years’ study of law added a practicable equipment. But all these years of hard study were only a beginning for the still more arduous study he did in preparation for the lectures he gave and the magazine articles and books he wrote, mostly on subjects relating to history and legislation.

Before there was any idea of making him President, before he could have seen any likelihood of such a thing, he knew congress and congressional procedure thoroly, far better than did many experienced congressmen.

Wilson’s experience as president of Princeton university gave him a training in the handling of men and also in fighting for democratic institutions and so in this great crisis of American history, the opportunity found the man prepared, trained and waiting to take his high place in the world, a position where he is called upon to put to use all the knowledge and skill he acquired in all those long years of study and training.

There are other great persons of whom the same is true. In fact no one can become great who is not ready to take the opportunity when it comes, nor indeed succeed in smaller matters and whatever we prepare ourselves to do or become, the opportunity will come to us to do or become that thing.

Even tho we never become one of the great persons of the world, the chance is sure to come to us to use whatever knowledge we acquire.

I knew a woman who denied herself other things in order that she might pay for French lessons. There seemed no chance that it would ever be an advantage to her except as a means of culture, but she now has a good position at a large salary which she would have been unable to fill but for her knowledge of French.

There is unfortunately a reverse side to this picture I have drawn of efforts crowned by success—just as achievements are made possible by a careful preparation, a lack of effort to reach forward and beyond our present position works inversely, and again examples are too numerous to mention.

A hired man on a farm who always needs a boos; who is unable mentally and by disposition to work unless his employer is present and leading; who never fits himself, by being responsible and trustworthy, for the responsibility of owning and running his own farm, will always be a hired man either on a farm or elsewhere.

The tenant farmer who is not preparing himself for being an owner by putting himself mentally in an owners place, getting his point of view and realizing his difficulties, is the tenant farmer who is always having trouble with his landlord and almost never comes to own his own farm. Realizing the difficulties and solving the problems of the next step up seem to lead inevitably to taking that step.

If we do a little less than is required by the position we now fill, whether in our own business of working for someone else; if we do not learn something of the work of the person higher up we are never ready to advance and then we say, “I had a good chance if only I had known how, and so forth.”

If we spend on our living every cent of our present income, we are not ready to take that opportunity which requires a little capital and then we say, “that was a good chance if I could only have raised the money.”

There is also a touch of humor to be found in the fact that what we prepare for comes to us, although it is rather pitiful. Humor and pathos are very close “kin.”

When the influenza came to our town, Mrs. C. called a friend and tried to engage her to come and nurse her thru the illness.

“Have you the influenza?” asked the friend.

“Oh, no!” replied Mrs. C. “None of us has it yet, but I’m all ready for it. I have my bed all clean and ready to crawl into as soon as I feel ill. Everything is ready but a nurse and I want you to come and take care of me.”

In a very few days Mrs. C. was in bed with an attack of influenza. She had prepared for the visit and she could say with the psalmist, “The thing I feared has come upon me.”

Mrs. A.J. Wilder. "Opportunity." Missouri Ruralist (November 5, 1918).

CLICK HERE to return to the list of articles from the Missouri Ruralist.