Opportunity Knocks Once - Make use of your opportunity!!!

Hello, I came across this story, felt really inspiring to me, so thought of sharing to you.

Once there was a rich Old Man in a village. He had an only daughter and was about to look out for finding a right partner for her. As he was growing old and wanted to see her daughter getting married and hand over all his possessions to a right bride. He started off with his mission, to call out all young people in his village, and gave them an open Challenge, for marrying his daughter.

Many youngsters in the village were very excited to hear about the challenge and tried their level best to get shortlisted for the challenge. Finally, after lot of scrutiny, one courageous young guy had passed all the challenge and finally was called for the Final Challenge. So his final chance to beat the Challenge for taking his daughter as his wife and to take hold of all his possession, is to catch hold of buffalo tail, when he finds it. Quite Simple is it? Let see what happened?

The day as come, where the guy needs to complete and complete his challenge. The Rich Old man greeted the guy and told him the instructions for him to listen carefully. Rule 1: He will have three chances to complete this challenge, Rule 2: There will be 3 Buffalos will be released one by one & Rule 3: he needs to sit on top of the buffalo and catch its tail. The guy was very energized and felt it is very easy to win this challenge and eagerly waited for the first door to open.

All eyes in the villages are keen on the young guy & looking keen to see if he can win this challenge. Time has come, the first door had opened, and the guy was eagerly waiting to face his first chance to complete his challenge, here comes a Buffalo with more than 100 tons of weight and going near its highly impossible, within a fraction of second, the buffalo went passing him. He was quite disappointed, and he thought he has two more chances to win the challenge. The Door opened again, here comes the second one, which is bigger than the earlier and it was 1000 tons of weight and it passed by within a fraction of second.

The Old Man asked, my Son you have missed two chances, what’s your stand?  Young man replied, I have one more Chance, let me face it!! All eyes were again on him, and eagerly looking, whether he can win the challenge in the last chance. Young man was also keen to look forward the third door to open, and he said to himself, what come may, I will dare to lose my life to win this challenge. The third door opened & his eyes was on the door, finally his last chance, the third buffalo was out and he can’t believe his eyes, it’s totally different unlike the other two, very skinny and he ran with all his might, jumped on top of the buffalo and saw behind, the buffalo had no TAIL.

Friends, the young man thought he had three chances, so he missed all two chances and felt he will make use of the final chance to win the challenge. But who knows, the third chance might not be the one, which will help him to win. So don’t miss your opportunity and remember as the old proverb says, Opportunity knocks once. Make use of the opportunity given and show your best!!

you loose hope, you loose the war!

Of late, I have resumed my Gym activities – yet again, for the umpteenth time. And yet again, I promised myself to use the Gym for the entire tenure I have paid for. I just hope my lapses in Gym Schedule don’t happen – yet again :p At least for now, I am regular and trying to forget the satisfying pain in my muscles, with the hope that I will attain the coveted title – of a fit person.

Today however, my experience was a little different – similar to Buddha attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, only my Bodhi Tree was a machine where in I could exercise my legs with considerable pressure :p (For the Gym freaks – it was the Leg Curl Machine, with 70 pounds pegged for weights). As I was resting, in between my repetitions at the machine; I was glad and secretly very proud that I was able to pull in the weights, albeit my legs were complaining loud enough to dispel any proud feelings ;) But it was a rare moment of insight – I was surprised to discover that it was me myself who pushed my body to pain, and yet I was very happy about the outcome. (though the results apart from the pain in my legs is yet to show up)

I realised that we are our own rivals when it comes to progress – we are scared of the journey; scared of the pain; scared of the hardships we will have to endure to achieve the goal we want. The journey will be definitely be long, and the path definitely murky. On top of which, we will have to push ourselves to that pain. Nobody else can make us do it. Ofcourse, the gym trainer will come and direct me to increasing the weights, and ofcourse, I could just ignore him and take the easy way out. The result? I lose. Perhaps that is the key take away – We need to push ourselves to achieve greater success, and along the way take any corollary pain in our stride and keep our eyes on the goal.

Yes, it would be tough to forget the pain and be focussed only on the goals. But guess what, life also allows us to have little joys in life along the way – only we need to recognise them. Trust me, nothing beats the “happy hormones” after an excruciating work out. But to keep going at it, everyday, every minute inspiring yourself – that is completely a different story. You lose focus, you lose hope, you lose the war. The gym still gets the money and you earn yourself only some regret.

Just like somebody status on Whatsapp read today – “There are two types of players in the world. The ones who  keep their nerves in control and win…and those who don’t”

I hope I find the encouragement in me to push myself to the gym tomorrow too. Fingers X. :D