Luck or Opportunity?

張貼日期：Jun 20, 2011 8:39:40 AM

Mandy Huang

“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Opportunities are for well prepared people. I think luck and opportunity are determined by ourselves. We need to grab any chance and make effort on everything. That is, we must be responsible for ourselves. No one can be successful without any effort.

In the movie Catch Me If You Can, the main character Frank used illegal methods to gain money. In order to gain more money, he impersonated as a pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer. It seemed that everything went smoothly. He had cashed more than $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in 26 countries. He was very lucky because god gave him a great gift for imitating, but he did not treasure his talent. Instead, he chose to do bad things for personal benefits. Frank was so smart and lucky that he escaped police many times, but in the end he was put in jail. In this case, we can see that even though we have good opportunities, everything would be in vain if we do them in the wrong way.

Conversely, in the movie Front of the Class, the main character, Brad, was diagnosed with a Tourette syndrome when he was six years old. God played a joke on him. Since he got this incurable disease, he began making noises. He could not control his own body. Many schools, teachers, and students could not accept him. However, he did not look down upon himself. He tried very hard to be a good teacher. After being rejected by 24 schools, Brad was finally given the opportunity to prove his true worth as a teacher. He was very optimistic. He took Tourette as his teacher. He learned a lot from Tourette because the disease let him know how to be a wonderful teacher ; he even took every student as his child. This movie let me realize that we should never let anything stop us from chasing our dream. We need to grab any opportunity. Even when we meet any difficult task, just face it and overcome it. The task will make our ability stronger than before.

These two examples are totally contrary. Frank is luckier than Brad. Frank was a normal person, and he also had better abilities and opportunities than Brad. Most of us are normal people. We have better conditions than some people. But we may not know how to cherish the chances, and always give excuses for our behaviors. If we do not know how to grab the opportunity, I think we will let the luck pass by.

Both opportunity and luck are important to us. Without opportunity we can’t have a better job or a more satisfying life. But we cannot wait for the opportunity to find us. We need to struggle to get it. Be a hard worker and well prepared person, luck and opportunity will be where you most need them.