Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; 
we usually expect it to beckon us 
with beepers and billboards. 
 ~William Arthur Ward

The Touchstone


When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes,
 one book was saved.
 But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man,
 who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.
The book wasn't very interesting, 
but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed.
 It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "Touchstone"!


The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn
 any common metal into pure gold.
 The writing explained that it was lying among 
thousands and thousands of other pebbles
 that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this:
 The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.


So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies,
 camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.


He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles 
and threw them down again because they were cold, 
he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times.
 So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea.
 He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. 
Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. 
Cold - throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.


The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. 
One day, however, about mid afternoon,
 he picked up a pebble and it was warm.
 He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done.
 He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea
 that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.


So it is with opportunity. Unless we are vigilant,
 it's easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand 
and it's just as easy to throw it away. 
- Author Unknown


"A man who misses his opportunity,
 and monkey who misses his branch, 
cannot be saved."
Hindu Proverb 


P.S:
May you always choose to recognize an opportunity 
when it presents itself......better still..............
may you always choose to believe
 that you know how to create opportunities
 where they seem to be none.
May your day turn out to be a really fabulous one :)
Namaste,
Bhagya