“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.” – Orison Sett Marden

Last week I was at on the treadmill and watching a segment on CBS this Morning about Justice Clarence Thomas making history by breaking his streak of seven years of silence on the bench. The piece went on to explain that the other Supreme Court Justices can be very abrasive towards lawyers presenting arguments with disrespectful comments.  After watching the piece I thought WOW…how cool would it be to see a case argued in the Supreme Court live and in person. Maybe I’ll take a day off from work sometime this year and take in day of arguments at the Supreme Court. Then I thought Jasmine you went to college in Washington, DC; you could have easily have gone a spent a day, two days, even a week at the Supreme Court. You missed the opportunity. A missed opportunity.

Then earlier this week I was at the the 57th Presidential Inauguration. Standing immediately over to the left of the row I was sitting in was Paula Abdul. A bunch of people (like me) took pictures of her but a few people actually walked over to her to take a picture with her. I wanted to take a picture with her but I thought I would be respectful her personal time and allow her to enjoy her time at the inauguration. Later that evening I sent her a tweet and she mentioned that “she would’ve LOVED to meet me and take pic.” A missed opportunity.

The evening that I returned home from Washington, DC this week  I received a phone call from a dear friend asking me to call her back that night no matter what time I picked up her voicemail.  I obliged and called her back around 11:30 PM.  She had bad news to share, her mother had lost her battle to cancer and passed away on Monday. SHOCK ran through my body. I knew her mom had been ill but I didn’t think or know she was THAT ill. I was reminded that my friend had called me the week before and in her voicemail she said she was just calling to catch-up. Since I had no major new developments to report and due my “busyness” I had yet to return her call. A missed opportunity.

As a person that lives by the mantra Carpe Diem…Seize the Day I’ve had my share of missed opportunities. It’s impossible to do everything but my challenge to myself and to you is to make sure you are doing the RIGHT things and the IMPORTANT things…don’t allow those things to become missed opportunities due to busyness, fear, laziness and complacency, the weather, not having your hair done, not having anything to wear, etc. because you never know if you’ll get another opportunity.