The Immense Opportunity
“It is only when we have searched everywhere but directly in front of us, that we then realisewhat we have always been in search for is whatwe have always had”
– Jacob Ryan
What is meant by The Immense Opportunity?How do you discern and see something as an opportunity?
An opportunity in and of itself, means a space is available for you to take action on and invest effort in. The immense opportunity, in particular, means opening up to the full vastness of life; seeing all experiences as a boundless opportunitythat can be absorbed into. Which involves exercising a level of perception that perceives opportunity in all rather than some, without discrimination or selectiveness. This does not mean you need to attain the best circumstances,acquire the best items or travel to every spreading continent to do so – that should be an experience in and of itself.
That said, you do not require exportingopportunity to increasingly distant destinationsnor extracting it from the proximity of objects; it is here right in front of you. Can you see it or feel it? Perhaps, even sense it? If not, you may nothave awoken to it yet.
It’s right here, matter of fact it is everywhere –in every crevice, every fibre, every rock, every leaf, every object, every building, every person, every mode of transportation, every experience, every failure, every success, every pain, every comfort, it is beneath all things you come across – it’s called Life. Not ‘your life’, the situations which apply to you individually and directly. Life itself; the far-reaching magnitude of all things. The trillions of complexities your livingexperience reveals to you every moment; each microscopic substratum of reality, more than our finite perceptions could ever process. This is where your opportunity lies, within everything.
This is merely a semantic philosophy, it is a living reality you can verify for yourself through immense attention and curiosity. Have you not ever pondered the astonishing and inconceivable forces that function both within you and life? That something more indescribable operates deeply innate beyond the mere visibility of the eye? Surely some ounce of intrigue has occupied you. Entertain the possibility that what I am proposing here is something readily available for you to experience yourself. Bearing in mind, that what I am trying to point to is something that’scompletely beyond the explanatory power of words. Words them self, are not the same thing as the “thing” in which they are directed toward. They are invariably separate from the thing they are pointing to and representing, since that is all they are, a “representation”. See if you can imbibe what is being spoken here in the experience that is happening directly in front of you right now. Pay close enough attention to your experience for some time, you will notice that your perceptions and sensitivity will begin to radically shift. You will see that things are not what they first seemed. They will begin to unfoldbeyond the very fabric of what they at first appeared.
To live in such a way implies that you disengage from drawing countless distinctions and boundaries. Extract all that lies existing within your experience and see what can come from doing such an act. See the field of your experience as an illimitable space of possibility. Be more inquisitive, be more wondrous, be more enraptured, be more ponderous, be more sensitively engaged, be more open, be more contemplative, be more purposed in action, be more attuned, be more optimistic. This does not mean you must then become blasé’ and reckless but more willing to see life far wider than the definitive boundaries of preconditioned human perception. The opportunity in life is not in what you have already come to know but in what knowing lies beyond what you already do.
What would happen if you began living in this way? What would come of the present life in which you are living if you acted upon some of these aspects? Imagine where you could be, the ways you would experience and the transformations that would unfold. Imagine what type of relationships you might then develop as a result. The kind of career you could forge and those you could inspire through doing so. What type of person you could become and invigorate into the world. Contemplate these questions because they are centrally important in what direction your life will proceed and the developments you will then undertake.
Begin engaging with the immensity of life. Consider operating from some of what has been spoken. Do this within all your experiences and you will then see how it was not the lack of opportunity in the experience but the lack of attendance to the experience itself.
The Subtleness of Opportunities
An opportunity is like the air of reality. It isvitally alive and everywhere yet you cannot see it, therefore, its denial is easy but its existence is irrefutable. This is equivalent to the existence of opportunities, they are universal and lurking in all areas, yet not so visible at a mere glance. This could be what renders them difficult to decipher yet still obvious in their actuality.
Opportunities are ever present and only require that you become attentively open and accessible to them. My challenge to you is to find somewhere they are not to be. This is quite difficult to discern once you become observant of all the fine details within your experience – there are innumerable aspects to reality which you willalways find to be new. Things that will utterly astound you when your attention towards them becomes invested.
Consider reflecting on the characteristics of opportunity listed below and see how they relate to your present experience.
Characteristics of Immense
Opportunity
• It exists but may not be perceivable.
• It’s within all things in varying degrees, it just requires the ability to see it.
• Its possibilities are infinite and endless.
• It’s right in front of you; wherever you presently subsist.
• It bears practical implications in human experience.
• It requires that you extend towards it and receive it.
• It applies to you but is also beyond just you.
These characterises outline some of the key features of what an immense opportunity can amount to. But don’t limit it to this, opportunitiesare infinitely endless, therefore your learning of them will always be afresh. Perceiving an opportunity is more to do with the level of interpretation that has been used to comprehend what’s experienced than it is to do with what may be visibly apparent. Remember, an opportunity is more subtle than you may initially consider. Be open to that possibility and more curious for how you may be overlooking where it may already be existing. See if you can begin to locate opportunities of this nature in your present experience.
The questions to ask may then be, why strive tofoster this insightfulness in life? What will it lead to? What makes it so significantly rewarding to do so? If we deeply explore this, it is because at the core your very being depends on it. Our bodies, as survival machines, are constantlyseeking to maintain themselves as efficiently as possible, whether knowingly or unknowingly. You can observe this within yourself from the multitude of actions you enact, to the thoughts and motives you process. It is just whether you wish to do them consciously or unconsciously.Whether you desire to have them operate asoptimal as possible or at baseline only? This is a decision only you yourself can make and a venture only you yourself can embark on.
To fulfil the rudimentary needs of survival is to live in the abundance of immense opportunity. It is the opportunities you have strived to fulfil that builds you the necessary foundation to exceed beyond the mere need of surviving. You can then become the ceaselessly absorbable field that expands to its greatest capacities above all else.Moving in motion with what surrounds you, unperturbed by what it is and able to use it competently. That is what it means to live in the light of Immense Opportunity. To master survival then transcend to levels of being that are free from all attachments to it.
Versatility from Opportunity
Striving for opportunities in life also providesyou with a remarkable state of versatility. Meaning, you become more adept and equipped with numerous ways you can respond to the many facets of living. There are more ways your quality of health, learning, growth, interactions, creativity, and wonder can substantially improve. They become the very product of the opportunities you have undertaken to support them. It might be within your profession, your relationships, your personal domain or just life itself. Regardless of where you’re directing yourattention, opportunities can be the constituting elements that bind all facets of your experiencetogether. So, it must be asked, do you wish to see the many ways you can live a vibrantly enrichinglife, or allow it to be one that merely passes by leaving you and the opportunities within itbehind? It is more than likely that deep within, you yearn to live in this way but just have not yet pondered it quite deep enough.
We all have something inherent within us that wants us to feel every joy, elation, sensation, and beauty in life – to live as well as possible. We just typically do it at levels that its unaware to us andthat serves very little to attain it. But nonetheless, the desire to experience these actualities still remains.
Take a moment to observe your actions, motions, and movements. You may but notice that they are to feed some form of desired comfort to live well. Wanting to live well is the very act of fulfilling comfort. Wherever your actions lead you, whatever they lead you to do,your desire for living comfortably is always an aspiration. Our wish to live well is reflected through the implicit comforts we act from. This striving for comfort extends itself across an array of many different situations. Sometimes what we strive for is the avoidance of a situation, which still invariably fulfils the need for comfort.Whether it’s due to fear, uncertainty, anger or agitation, we seek the comfort that replaces these undesirable sensations. It’s just that in this instance, our comfort is derived from the activity we choose to substitute experiencing them. So in this, we can see that it’s not just joy, pleasure, and safety that provokes our drive for comfort but also our fear of being unable to experience them. Irrespective of the form it takes, the yearning forcomfort is but what dominates the way in which we live. The question is just whether you conscious of such a process. And further, if you are doing this to live avoidantly or abundantly, whether to experience life at an intensely lowlevel or intensely high level. If not at an intenselyhigh level, this is one of the many opportunities for you to capitalise on.
Neglecting the Immensity of Life
The inability to see the immensity of opportunity that life serves to us is quite like living in binding to a singular segment within it;experiencing a finite capture of it and ignoringthe full reel in all we could experience. As if wewere searching for which way to go, when we ourselves have attached the blindfold – blindingthe full ineffability in what it is there is to see.Just the walk from your front door to the letter box is thriving with opportunity, just as is the waking of every morning, a conversation with someone you have never met, the steps from your car door to your place of work, the scarcity of having nothing to do, a task involving cleaning, tidying, or preparing – it’s in every action, place, and movement. It may sound over aggrandisingor overstated, but it is relevantly so. Perhaps, if this sounds unbelievable or ridiculous, it’s the invitation that you may need to considerwelcoming. Consider widening the lens of yourperception from today – attempt making it one of your aims in life and see where it takes you.
These small things in life that have so far beenmentioned we so often neglect and it is this I suggest that’s precisely one of the primary reasons we are in such an insistent state of lackand insatiability. Not a lack because the “small things” don’t deliver but because we cannot see what they have already delivered. An interaction with someone often appears to be “just the norm”, waking up every day, just “ordinary”, cleaning, just “protocol”. But are they? Are the really? These would appear to be speculationsthat deserve further exploration. Consider, if you were only acquainted with that interaction of aperson once every year, that rarity of human interaction would become an extraordinary happening or if waking up was completelydependent on the flip of a coin, the waking action to which follows would be then be filled with vitalising engagement or if cleaning the housealso meant decluttering mind, cleaning would become an inner activity just as it is an outer activity.
We can find it easy to neglect these small things because of their simplicity and banality, because we cannot see the significant benefit they could potentially offer to us. So, in following, they are regarded trivial and frivolous and made redundant if no visible value is evident. If we do not see a return in immediate comfort or material revenue, it is often neglected. Yet, copious research attests that the things we thrive on have little to do with material acquisitions and impulsive endeavours. The source of our thrivingis instead generated from intrinsic things such as; new experiences, moments of human interaction, unity, enhancing oneself and those around them, embracing challenge, adventure, encapsulating creativity, epiphanic moments of discovery, higher states in consciousness, full immersioninto an activity, tranquillity and stillness, learning of culture, immersing in new environments and naturalistic ecosystems, just to name a few. All these things hold no lucrativeness but are the foundations to what make us thrive. They are what directly nourish human growth and experience. It is their apparent simplicity thatprovides profundity.
There is a reason why someone who drives a sports car quite often maintains very little satisfaction – they have reached for a level of pleasure that is inevitably momentary, finite, and completely predicated on what is significantrelative to their context of significance. Of course, the sports car is not the problem but in that it becomes the substitute for what was already there. It is rather the simple things that make humans burst with energy and aliveness. Which coincidently, makes for greatness and gratitude as they are infinitely accessible and of little cost. Once you become aware of this, you will save endless time striving for insubstantial things. You will instead seek after more fulfillingand advantageous things.
The Mind Conditioned Norm
If we take a moment to see how all this reflects in the norm of daily living, we may notice some distinct limits that are superimposed by the mind.That is, our awareness tends to rest in thebaseline of our functionality, at thanks to sometruly sophisticated psychological aerobics.
What becomes known about our experience is the extent to which our processing of it has madeit available to us. Or in short, we only know what our inner system allows us to process. So, the “simple” aspects of experience we seem to overlook may be due to an inherent function in how we actually operate rather than a conscious choice we are making ourselves. Neurologists often refer to this as the Default Mode Network – a complex neurological system in the brain thatprimarily, consolidates all that the mind rendersdown to a concentrated set of information – a reduction down to bare basics. This concentrated set of information then contains our sensory perceptions to what has been encoded and stored. Since this is discriminant, we become completely blind and oblivious to what else remains outside of it. This process predisposes us to a very limited outlook and perspectival lens which then only renders a small fragment of life knowable. Everything then just becomes a limited product of human perception, a derivative of the selectiveinformation we have previously stored. Thisfunction of mind serves an important purpose in assisting our ability to memorise and fulfilhabitual tasks, though it may become problematic if it limits us from the possibilities that lie beyond our habituality.
Its bewildering to consider that unknowingly, we may be restricting the level of experience we could be perceiving in the world. What this reallydemonstrates is the vast magnitude of life we have yet to experience. That the more reality isopenly navigated, the more we could realise the endless areas it can be further strived within. All the counterintuitive areas that first appear mundane and of no purpose, could be realised asprofound possibilities. Having only require us to further examine them to discover new profundities. The opportunities in life are irreducibly ceaseless, providing we strive to see them.
This equally applies to conceptual aspects of reality that we concoct and accumulate in the mind. There is an immensity of knowledge beyond the confounds of beliefs, paradigms, theories, language, universities, books and ideas– there is far more beyond them than our minds allow us to conceive. Life has within it, a vast array of insight and wisdom residing right therein its existence, it is just simply overlooked andundermined each and every moment. Some of the most profound things to be learnt in life are farbeyond the realm of conceptual information our minds can render. It just takes a level of curiosity to separate from this default mode of functionality. To release the shackles of incessant mind activity and allow experience to inform youof something more. Take some time to really put this to the test and consider what it could be that you are overlooking. Become a student of lifeitself and explore what your experiences could teach you. To live in the experience of immense opportunities means becoming a conscious operator, such that you cultivate what is alreadyhere.
Take it upon yourself to attempt some of the elements that lie within in this following exercise;
Actualising Opportunities Exercise
➢ Begin a conversation with someone you have never before;
➢ Seek to master each action you enact throughout your days;
➢ Attempt an activity you feel you couldnever do;
➢ Right now, implement the most powerful habit that could transform the trajectory of your current living existence;
➢ Completely invert the structure of your day, doing the opposite to your usual schedule and see what unfolds;
➢ Begin facing the thing you fear most;
➢ Do something that contributes to the wider community and yourself;
➢ Enter a new environment you have never entered;
➢ Go outside and fully submerge yourself in to a natural setting, hands, feet and all your senses;
➢ Introduce a uniquely creative approach intoyour tasks;
➢ Contemplate your present living existence and become attentively aware of what you are able to do right now in light of it;
➢ Do an activity that once filled you with joy in the childhood you once experienced;
➢ Find one thing you can start contributing to the surrounding world today and onward;
➢ When able to, just for a moment disengage from everything you are doing, whatever it is you are doing and wherever it is you may be and just be;
➢ Take in the full immensity of your current living circumstance and genuinely, acceptingly and compassionately acknowledge it – whether it be consuming you of comfort or discomfort;
➢ Infuse yourself with the eagerness to fully embody what you see, hear and experience;
➢ Take a few seconds longer to really observeyour experience before becoming hyperactive within it;
➢ Develop a new a way of perceiving your situations;
➢ Adopt someone else’s perspective for a day;
➢ Begin taking notice of the things that your senses tend to overlook;
➢ See the magnificence in the things of simplicity and consider what they could bring forth;
Don’t underestimate the power in doing any one of these approaches. The power is not in their statement but in the action of being totally susceptible and open while doing them. There is no one particular activity that must be done, it is rather the way in which you do whatever is available. Often it is not that we require new situations outside of what is currently had but rather the insight to see what is already there to be used. Really tune into these dimensions of your experience alike and allow the unfolding motions of them bring rise to new possibilities and discoveries.
