Waiting for opportunity to present itself is equivalent to laborious procrastination. As Sir Francis Bacon once said, “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” This is true of national freedom as much as personal endeavors. If we fail to seize opportunities in addition to risking it all to create them, we utterly and completely leave our fate in the hands of chance. That road is littered with the cadavers of those who play it safe. Consider the history of America for the best example. Had the colonists not declared their freedom from England and risked their very lives to create a new country that honored the belief that all people should be free, the state of the world today would be quite different.
The idea of freedom is multifaceted, from the state point of view to that of the individual, and from the aspect of liberty to that of living one’s dreams. You see, no one will give you freedom. It must be grasped with strength and conviction. It must be purchased with sacrifice and risk. When it’s given, it is only permission, perhaps even charity, and it comes with strings attached even when they are not evident to the casual observer.
Existing from one day to the next awaiting an opportunity to break out of the mold and experience that for which we yearn produces naught but for the waiting. Perhaps it is waiting for an opportunity to live a dream, a chance to explore long suppressed goals, or even the hope of being truly free when one has lived so much of life under tyranny and despotism.
When you have waited, has it made you sure of the waiting? Has it made you comfortable in the empty promises of days to come? Has it fulfilled your need for living and the drive to accomplish? Has it made the goal nearer?
But what of the risk, you ask. Yes, what of it? The way to find your dreams is not always the right way, and it certainly can not always be called the easy road. True freedom is taken from the world. That involves risk. National or personal, it is only gained through the largest and most dangerous bets of all. Those opportunities most worth pursuing carry the greatest promise and the greatest realization of fear. If there is nothing to be lost, what can possibly be gained?