When through Christian Science a clearer and more exact sense of existence is gained, it seems strange to hear men speak of their opportunities as things which come and go by chance. Many there are who regard opportunity as something which occurs but seldom in any man's experience: that if he is ready for it and embraces it, it may mean success; if on the other hand he misses or neglects it, then failure is the necessary consequence, and he is left to drag out the rest of his existence in despair. In such cases we are apt to find these unfortunate ones wasting their time in vain regrets and looking upon life as only a dreary wilderness from which hope has been blotted out. This hopeless outlook not only darkens their own sense of existence, but throws a gloom on all around them.
This fatalistic concept of opportunity as a circumstance or event which may perchance be recognized and utilized, or unwittingly passed by and lost, is as complete a subversion of the true sense as are all other mortal beliefs about man's life. Even the dictionary definition of the term, which is, "A time or place favorable for executing a purpose," fails to uphold such an erroneous conception. In reality, opportunity is what a right sense of life presents to us now, to be made use of.
What are called lost opportunities are simply failures to make the best use of our advantages. The discovery of such failures should stimulate to more earnest endeavor rather than hinder our progress by discouragement. The past may not be retrieved, it is true, but the present is still with us and the future before us, ever holding for us the reward of faithful, patient activity. Thus we see that we are always at the point of opportunity. "That," as Mrs. Eddy writes (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 339), "to-morrow starts from to-day and is one day beyond it, robes the future with hope's rainbow hues."
