This is http://www.essayz.com/a8606242.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
                              %MISSED OPPORTUNITIES 860624

     If  you are driving down the highway and fail to turn
at  a fork in the road and then pretend that there was  no
failure,   your  behavior  will  not  make  for  a  better
situation  than admitting the failure and taking  whatever
correct steps might be taken.

     If  you are building a house and fail to install  the
electrical  wiring before finishing the walls---pretending
that  all  is  fine  will  not  make  things  better  than
immediately  admitting  your failure and  taking  whatever
corrective steps may be in order.

     If in a developing human relationship there is a time
at which you could with integrity express some thought and
feeling  about  developments,   and  you fail  to  do   so
--- pretending   there  was   no failure  will   not  make
things  better   than  admitting your failure and   taking
whatever corrective  steps  may promote both personal  and
communal integrity.

     Often failures to take advantage of opportunities are
not  acknowledged to anybody,  not even to  oneself,   and
instead  pretense and/or collusion plays a tragic role  in
trying to deny that there was any failure.   The result is
that  there  are repeated failures to  take  advantage  of
similar opportunities, and a tragic pattern develops.

     A culture  may  (because  of its  ideals  and values)
systematically repress the ability of its members to  take
advantage  of opportunities for intellectual,   affective,
sexual,  political,  spiritual,  physical,  etc.  types of
growth  which  would promote both  personal  and  communal
development.    Such failures to fulfill opportunities are
tragic  failures  flowing  from inappropriate  ideals  and
values.      The  failure to recognize  and acknowledge  a
missed  opportunity  is  a tragedy  that  may  lead  to  a
sequence   of   tragic   missed opportunities  to  promote
integrity.

     Often   a   missed  opportunity  can  not  fully   be
recovered, it is too late.  It is essential to acknowledge
that fact, that it is too late.  To pretend otherwise will
lead  to additional missed opportunities,  and it will  be
doubly  late.    One  may miss  the  opportunity  to  deal
realistically with the reality of a missed opportunity.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================