*Wise people grab the first opportunity to achieve their aim. But people who are successful do not wait for an opportunity. They create opportunities for themselves to achieve their goal.

 It is normal for man to wait for opportunities to knock at his door. Do not miss any opportunities, wise people say. There are opportunities for studying well and coming up in life. There are many opportunities for landing a plum job. There are opportunities for making lots of money. Opportunities are unlimited. Seize them to add value to your life.

 But there are many who are not so lucky. There are no opportunities to knock at their door. They have no one to hold their hand and lead. They find themselves left alone to their fate.

 Once, someone asked Alexander the great if he would take the next city if he had an opportunity to do so. The emperor was quick to reply. `I do not wait for opportunities. I create opportunities.’

 You should wait for an opportunity to come and knock at your door. You should create opportunities for yourselves. Whenever a need arises, without waiting for an opportunity to come to you, you should create opportunities for yourself.

 There are many great men and women who have risen from a poor background. Abraham Lincoln had neither wealth nor a godfather to take him to heights. Yet he created opportunities for himself and rose to become president of the United States. Marie Curie had to discontinue her studies to take care of her parents and siblings. She created opportunities for herself to become a great scientist.

 John Bunyan, one of the world’s greatest writers, wrote ``Pilgrims’ Progress’’, a masterpiece in English literature. He wrote it while he was in prison. He did not wait to get out of prison to write the book, he had to face many problems in the process. His jailors refused to give him paper to write. They tried to disturb him in whichever way possible. He sat on the base floor and wrote on scraps of paper used as cork for milk bottles.

 John Bunyan created opportunities for him self by using leisure time and scraps of paper, anyone else in his place would have cursed his fate and idled away his time. But John Bunyan created on opportunity for himself and made full use of it. And the end result was a masterpiece!

 There are plenty of opportunities to do what you want. It is for you to grab them and make full use of them. Often things do not happen the way you want. The opportunities that come your way may not be the ones you are looking for. If you go on waiting for a right opportunity, you may never get what you want. Instead use the available opportunities to achieve you aim.

 A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so says a proverb. Use every opportunity that comes your way. If there is no opportunity, create one to work wonders. Your opportunity lies in your ability to make the best of the circumstances in which you find yourself. Your success depends primarily on your personality and your initiative

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The kid’s club

Three children could not find a place to play

Ganesh, Jayanna, and Shankar live in a building called Sailaja Apartments. It has ten floors. However, there is no place for them to play. The only place where they can play is the staircase.

 Jayanna: I do not like the staircase. It is dark and dirty.

Ganesh: it is the best place to play. Come, I will show you how to have fun.

 The children take the lift to the top floor.

 Ganesh: come on, get busy! Everybody should ring a bell and run.

Jayanna: ring a bell? Why?

Ganesh: to see the fun! Come on, start running, or they will catch you.

 They press the doorbells of three flats and run sown the stairs. Six floors below, they stop to listen of the angry voices.

 I man: what is going on here?

II man: who rang the bell?

III man: wait till I catch you!

 Shankar: this is the best game I have ever played!

Ganesh: come on, let us do it again.

 For a whole week the children do it again and again. They do not get caught. Then one day, they ring the bell of a flat on the eighth floor.

 The door opens and a man comes out. The children run down the stairs. Ganesh slips and hurts his leg.

 Ganesh: oh, my leg, my leg!

Shankar: come on, get up, Ganesh.

The man is coming down.

 Ganesh: you run, I cannot move.

Jayanna: we will not leave you here.

The man catches up with them.

 Man: you naughty children! How can you disturb people like this? It is a very rude to do.

Then he bends over Ganesh and feels his leg gently.

Man: I do not think you have broken any bones. It is just a cut. Come with me. I will bandage it.

 The children follow the man into his flat.

Man: come in, children. I am Rama Rao. Let’s be friends. Call me uncle Ramu.

 Jayanna: we are sorry, uncle Ramu. But there is no place for us to play.

Ramu uncle: I have an idea. I have an extra room. We can have a kid’s club there. You kids can meet there and do whatever you like-expect rude things like ringing other people’s doorbells and running other people’s doorbells and running away!

Uncle Ramu smiles and pats Jayanna’s cheek.

You may have heard that your mind is like an iceberg, with 9/10 of it below the level that we can see. You may have heard that most people do not use 90% of their brain. You can learn to use your mind to its fullest potential and be creative.

Creativity means having the power of quality to express yourself in your own way. A creative person sees the world through fresh, new eyes and then uses what they see in original ways.

Take a good look at your physical surroundings. Everything, from this paper you are reading, to the chair on which you sit began as a thought in mind.

To create something, you desire, all you need is to imagine it and then begin the necessary activity to bring it into the physical.

All of us are influenced by all that is happening around us. Some of us simply accept what we see while some think deeply about it. By thinking, reasoning and working on an idea, we can create something.

You know how did Wright brothers invent the aero plane?

When young, they were playing with their toy glider. Seeing it fly gave them an idea.

How about making people fly in a glider?

Both of them started working on this idea. Initially, they failed but kept on trying and trying. Finally, they came up with the invention of the aero plane.

A curious mind

Sitting in the kitchen, James watched the kettle boiling. He heard the whistle as the steam from the boiling water was trying to escape from the lid and the spout. He watched with great interest. He saw that with the pressure of the steam the lid of the kettle began to shake.

His interest kept getting aroused. He began to think and realized that steam had force, power and could be put to some use.

When he grew up, he worked on this idea and finally invented the steam engine which works on the power of the steam and moves the train.

This creative boy was James Watt whose invention has become so useful to us.

We all cannot be great scientists or inventors but we can be inspired by them. We can, learn and be creative in our own ways.

Learning to use our creative mind is similar to developing any other skill-it takes patience, practice and perseverance.

Discover your creative mind and it will make you feel good about yourself.