Seize the opportunity

So, this is being uploaded in the week that end with Valentine Day, and in the UK Valentines is about our significant other or someone we would like to be. But to have that special person in your life one of you would have had to have seized an opportunity, make a move on the other for it all to start.

Last week I wrote about finding purpose, a part of that is being able to seize opportunities that come a long. Some of the best opportunities come dressed up as something completely different. Opportunities are not just about doing whatever it is you want to be doing with life, it’s about the journey, the learning and experiencing, and they don’t always come in the order we plan them, nor do they always teach us what we expect.

I’m a hearing aid wearer and have been since my 20s, but before that I lived in very quiet, even silent world. Trying to connect with people was hard, especially when you’re asking them to repeat several times before you actual cotton on to what topic is being spoken about, let alone what’s actually being said. Trying to connect with females was even harder, as young male who relied heavily on lip reading because of an unseen disability, the regular mistake of assuming my eyes were on cleavage because I wasn’t looking them in the eye.

As I look back at growing up, what opportunities did I have? I was educated in a mainstream school, I still made friends, I had the odd girlfriend. For the most part worked without specialised equipment for the hearing issue, I now wear hearing aids full time. I was able to spend 10 days camping in The Netherlands as a scout and 12 months voluntary services Japan, both giving the opportunity to be part of international communities.

It was at the end of the last of these experiences that I was given the opportunity to see a top specialist about the hearing issues I had endured growing up. Even after receiving my first hearing aids the opportunities just kept coming, I cycled 900 miles around the top of England, I spent 6 months travelling solo in Australia, I worked customer orientated work environment for the first time and even managerial roles. I’ve had some bad experiences too, very bad in some cases, but none of these experiences and opportunities are linked to my dream.

After I left school I went to college to do a BTEC in performing arts because I wanted to work in theatre. Growing up I attended workshops and completed drama exams, but as you see nothing after these were theatre related opportunities.

Here’s the point, every one of those experiences and opportunities have taught me something of significance, none of these have told me I can’t do theatre as a paid career. But what they have done is given me my work ethics, they have shown me that my hearing issue is not an obstacle, they’ve taught me how to deal with the judgement of others, but most of all, they have shown me that sometimes the hardest road you need to walk is alone and that’s OK too.

We are in a global pandemic as I write this, theatres are under tight restrictions and have even been forced into compulsory closure for long periods. The road out of this is not going to be easy for the industry, but it an opportunity for me to share my experiences, my opportunity to help bring the industry together during this time.

I do wonder where I would be today if I had not taken the opportunities that I have, what if I had only waited for the right opportunity, the one that is directly linked to theatre and the creatives? Would I be writing these articles or making videos today?

Opportunities come and go all the time. Some remove things from our lives, while others bring good things or even challenges. Some are loud and come with a bang other a quiet and make you wonder what’s going on, but they are still all important.

So to bring this back to where I started with valentine day, I said above that I had had the odd girlfriend. This is because I have never made relationship of the loving kind a priority, therefore I am aware that I have missed many an opportunity in the dating realm. But then my view has always been that we live in world where females strive to be equal with men, yet when it comes the dating game, males are still expected to make the first move, so it’s not just me who has missed the opportunities yet live with an unfair assumption I’m scared or don’t know how to approach, when the truth is, I was focused elsewhere. So, if you want to something in life you need to take the opportunity, not rely on someone else to do it for you.