FACTORING FEAR

Fear is often the factor ill-figured.

I just talked with a guy whose a lawyer by training and ambitious by nature. At 51 he's still striving to do the dream. In listening to him, however, I was reminded of the importance of having a sense of destiny. That's what his conversation lacked. He's read all the books and knows how to befriend people, but his sense of destiny is dulled, because in doing the dream he's too open to opportunity. So, he goes to meetings "just in case," or to inquire curiously.

Nothing's wrong with being curious. Everyone should strive to be so. Opportunities likewise should be explored. But once you've marketed yourself through all the nebulous networks when do you learn? When do you transition and become the opportunity that you seek? If destiny is anything, it is opportunity. Otherwise we're doomed to dream. Developed, however, a sense of destiny makes us the opportunity that others seek.

Then we cease being courtiers and become courted instead. Yes, we may still need their resources to fund our resolve. But a sense of destiny redirects, enabling the resourceful to see us as instruments of change rather than as aspirants of opportunity. Thus they willingly offer what we desperately need. So few, however, know this way because most are too anxious.

They don't know who they are or what they have. So, they let opportunity overthrow. The rest are too impatient and pawn their integrity. They aren't inherently immoral, just ethically misguided, which is why so few reach their place without being impugned. Only a sense of destiny grants this grace. In covering us so, we avoid the errors created by the lure of opportunity in a land of opportunists.