A CHANCE FOR CHANCES

October 27th, 2020

This episode is dedicated to Nathan

The best chance we can take is to try and create more chances.  In it’s simplest form, a chance is just a possibility for something to happen.  There’s a chance it might rain.  But to take a chance explicitly defines something about what we do, our action, and the results that might come about.  To take a chance to create more chances isn’t just a clever sounding trick, it’s an instruction to make moves that are most likely to result in the possibility of more options.

In this sense of creating options, options are identical to a certain type of perspective: one rooted not just in possibility but also practicality.  Take for example something a bit more concrete.  All of us dream up ideas everyday for the fantastical things that might be possible with future technology.  But those who actually take the time to learn and understand what technology is available currently and exactly how it works are afforded the ability to dream in a totally different way.  Someone acquainted with the cutting edge knows what is possible from a practical standpoint.

A vast imagination can be quite a hinder when trying to accomplish something in the real world.  With a head always stuck in the clouds of tomorrow, the real opportunities of today are missed.

The best way to create more chances isn’t to have a more active imagination, but to learn something.  Learning by default requires a change in perspective; the journey through confusion sheds an old way of understanding for a new way of looking at the world.  The primary change after having learned something, especially something practical, like welding, or coding, or woodworking, is having a tighter understanding of what is actually possible.  Then a vast imagination can more efficiently filter itself into avenues that are far more likely to be real paths in life.

Everyone has an idea for an app, and this is usually a mashup remix of all sorts of components of other apps that we all use on a daily basis.  It’s reasonable to think these remixes would work, but only a coder can see if and more importantly how it would be done.  But the practicality goes beyond this.  With practical tools and knowledge at hand, there is a flip side: other creations not even dreamed of can be seen by the mere juxtaposition of very real possibilities.  So often the process of creation yields new things that were never planned nor dreamed of; but this can only happen with real action, actual effort, and the required skills.

It’s the skills we acquire, and the practical knowledge associated with them that generates a real chance.  Unlike the fleeting and fickle nature often associated with luck and opportunity, the hard-earned path of plying one’s attention and focus consistently to a topic can eventually generate opportunity, not by manifesting luck, or even preparation, but simply coming to a clear understanding of what’s actually possible - and then acting upon it.