COULD OPPORTUNITIES BE CALLED DEAD HOURS?

Beymar Leonardo Solorzano Alviz

lucastaneda82@yahoo.com

Publicado en Capital Letter No. 5

Mayo de 2004

Have you ever thought your life can change in a way you really dislike when you least expect it? What would happen with all those things you wanted to do, especially with those you could have done but you did not take advantage of when you had the opportunity? I can assure you have, but after doing this you just say "that is not going happen to me!". But it happened, it happened to me.

In my plan of Hie I did not imagine I could have an accident and less that I could break my spine! So when it happened I did not know how to act -and still many times now I do not know. Just imagine, you are a common guy and next second Chrash!, Boom!, Bang!, you cannot move your legs at all... so, you have to stop studying, stop carrying out your daily life and start asking everybody for help to move all the time, supposedly just worrying about your therapies to get well as much as it gets.

Therapies have helped me recover a lot. Nowadays I can walk with a stick and some braces, and I am a regular student again thanks to the help provided by the University and by many people who insisted me on retaking my life as a student. But actually, I cannot help it worrying about therapies, I also keep asking myself lots of questions, Why me?, Why this?, Why in this moment?, How long?, How?, Who?, When?...

But what I think most about is all those things I wanted to do, and when I had the opportunity of doing them I just said "I will do that later, tomorrow, another day, next semester..." Now, I'm getting used to thinking if I had taken advantage of... I would...          I am sure I can do many of them and I hope I will be able to do others when I get better, but there are others that I am never going to do. So if I had taken advantage of them when I could, I would… But usually, as me, people do not take advantage of the opportunities they have, "maybe later, perhaps tomorrow, surely another day", and they lose them although they want to do those things, just for the habit of postponing.

I am not writing this article to let you know about my story, but to show you what could suddenly happen to anybody and to create a space to let you reflect about being on alert regarding the opportunities life gives you everyday to take advantage of them when you can.

What is more, to encourage you to create your own opportunities, since perhaps they never come by themselves, or when they come there is something that does not let you profit from them. I am writing this to make you realize your life also could change in a way you really dislike when you least expect it, and it is then that you realize your opportunities could become dead hours.