Strike while the iron is hot.

      Strike while the Iron is hot.

”If you had one shot or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, just one moment; would you capture it or just let it slip”. When I first heard these lines in an academy award winning song, I realise as to how important it is to do things when the time is right. People never make full use of the opportunity they get to achieve what they want; instead they remain sceptical towards it. Opportunities are very rare to find these days.

The above topic relates to an ironsmith and how he sits by the furnace with the iron object is in the furnace and hits it when the time is right. If he misses the opportunity, the iron gets cold and he has to repeat the process again.

Everyone wants to be successful in life. People put in efforts to be successful, some succeed while some not. Successful people are appreciated whereas people who do not succeed are branded as incompetent; however one should not indulge in such branding practices. But, thinking of failure before trying and not doing anything makes life sterile. Failure is a part of life, not trying to be successful is where the actual fault lies.

The above topic can also be explained using the example of an alert sailor who seizes the chance to set his ship on sail, he who waits for stable weather finds himself anchored onto the shore. Many say that people achieve only when the time is right, time is a factor but always clinging to it is equivalent to squandering your chances of success. Options are always there but opportunity seldom strikes.

Students study, graduate and tend to take jobs; giving chunks of their time to them and getting quite low in return. Seldom realise that getting a simple job should not be the priority and they should aim for bigger. At such a young age even if they commit any mistake they can get away with it. So study and try to be out of the league. People will question; but you get opportunities of doing the stuff you like only once.

People come and go but life goes on forever. People are sent on earth to play their part. Life is earnest, life is to be lived and people have loads to lift and the ever prevailing truth is that work is worship and there is no substitute of work. But work becomes play when you grab the opportunities given to you on time. Success in doing so makes life worth living. People are born with talents, but even talent needs opportunity, if talent misses the opportunity; what’s the point of having it.

                This proven fact can be applied to the field of sports, sportspersons who are more agile and make the best out of the opportunities achieve more success and make their nation proud. For instance Mr. Saurav Ganguly made a century on his test debut, thus making the full use of his opportunity and as we know became a legend later on.

We all have had some experiences where we all had some opportunity to do something good and we squandered our chance, a person does feel abysmal about himself at first but clinging onto this feeling does more harm than good. We should learn from such experiences and give our all when opportunity next strikes. Nothing on this earth is permanent and failure always turns into success when we make the best out of the opportunity that we get.

But one thing that comes before opportunity is planning and hard work, both these entities together bring a myriad of opportunities for a person. People say that talented people get more opportunities. This is out right wrong; hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. This phrase should always be remembered.

There is no substitute to hard work; one has to work to get what he desires. Another attribute of success is planning, always remember; if you are failing to plan, you are planning to fail. Majority of human beings are found to shirk work, little they realise that this work is the reason of their existence, they are known by the work they do and being successful in that work proves to be an icing on the cake.

History is flooded with examples of people who struck on the opportunity they had and made a mark for themselves. When Mr. Isaac Newton saw an apple fall, he got curious as to what force did this and started searching; thereby discovering gravity. If he had not taken this opportunity, he would not have turned out to be this big. Legends did fail at times but they had the will to overcome the failure. On failure Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam elaborates that FAIL means “First Attempt At Learning.”

The wise always remain alert and alive, the right thinking man always strikes when the iron is hot. Shakespeare has said the same thing in the play Julius Ceaser:

‘there is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their lives

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.’

Concluding, we all have the spark within us and we can make a mountain out of a mole, provided we act on the opportunity that we get. Opportunities seldom strike but people, who act when they strike, become successful and those who do not, have to wait for the next time for it arrive. It’s your life, live and make it the way you want and never give away your opportunities. In the movie of life, opportunity always makes a guest appearance.