Something funny happened to me yesterday on my way back home. I was kind of running late and wanted to get home on time so, I decided to use a bike(in my part of the world, we use bike as a means of public transport and is fondly known as "Okada"). I stopped an okada man and I told him how desperate I was to catch up with time and urged him to be fast. We took off at the speed of light, he was so fast one or two drop of tears fell off my eyes. Something happened on the course of our journey that was both scary and educative. We were approaching a junction which is popular for been busy and full of traffic. A traffic warden which is popularly known as "yellow fever" is usually, stationed at this junction to maintain order and easy flow of traffic but, for some strange reason none was present. You could imagine how the road was, it seemed like I was not the only person in a hurry, the whole world seemed to be in a rush. My okada man on the other I guess, was not observing the situation from my point of view, he was still moving fast, I wanted to tell him to slow down but, I hesitated, owing to the fact that I was the one that told him to drive fast and I don't want to come across as being inconsistent. So, I just held my breath and prayed nothing bad happened.
  I guess he was too fast and was not able to observe a young lady, driving a beautiful Hyundai Sinatra charging straight at us(by the way am so into cars so, even with the heat of the moment, I could observe that). It would have being a head on collision, but thanks to fate and also the sharp reflexes of my faithful okada man, we were able to maneuver and avoid that from happening. I was still trying to recover from the shock, and gather myself when a 2nd episode started. My okada man started exchanging words with the lady in the beautiful car. Lot of things were said but what really caught my attention was what the okada man said; "idiot! I no blame you, na opportunity cause am, if to say i get you for see me dey ride this okada" (what he was simply saying is he does not blame the young lady rather, he blames the fact that he did not have the opportunities the lady had).
 What he said got me thinking, after thinking deeply I realized something, he was right but only to an extent. Its not about opportunity, its about you being prepared. We live in a world filled with opportunity but you have the duty to find it. Opportunity usually comes veiled is your level of preparedness that will aid in you unveiling it for the world to see. Considering the scenario of my okada man and the lady in the car, they are both in the same country, more or less in the same age bracket, maybe not from the same background but still is not an excuse. As Fela durotoye once said "your background has not right to put your back on the ground". So, if they are in the same country, same age, I believe they were exposed to the same economic conditions, government and politcal system and opportunities. I don't think there was a special system designed to just favour a selected group of persons alone. Presently, there is a recession and believe me when I say its affecting everyone. It is those that can identify the opportunities on ground now, and capitalize on it that will be able to rise above the recession. Jim rohn explained this perfectly when he said "it is not the wind that blows your boat that will determine gyour destination, rather it is the set of the sail". Let me make this whole article as simple as possible with this; what happened does not matter, what you will do about what happened that will matter. So, let us all make a commitment to be able to identify an opportunity.
The next article will be focused on how to prepare yourself for the opportunities out there. And, for those of you that care to know, the rest of my journey was smooth and I arrived home in one peice.