Missed opportunities happen more often than we might think because most of the time we aren’t aware enough to notice. When you do see a missed opportunity, it can be agonizing. The moment has passed, and it’s not slowing down or reversing its course for you.

Sometimes we don’t realize the Universe uses us to impart vital truths that spark creative impulses in others. We have much to give others, but if we are set in our ways, we will unconsciously be stingy with ourselves. We don’t realize that everything we’ve been through is in fact for other people.

The Synchronicity of Life

Synchronicity is the opposite of a missed opportunity. This happens when spiritual and physical forces are in alignment. You have been making good conditions by living unselfishly and praying unceasingly. When we live in accord with the natural flow, we are gifted with these precious glimpses of Big Magic working in our lives.

These are the moments when you meet your future best friend because one time you walked this way instead of that. 99% of the time we live in missed opportunity. So when something cosmic happens we are startled out of our wits. We are hit with a vision of how interconnected we all are, how integral spirit is in our seemingly provincial lives. However, it takes minimal effort on our part—yet still effort—to attract the right circumstances, people, and insights into our lives.

Was It Meant To Be?

Some people are of the opinion that everything happens for a reason. Nothing is a mistake, because in a way, even negative experiences are things we can learn from. This is true, but there are some things in life that we can make happen, or stop from happening if we put effort into it.

Doing Our Part

So what can we do to sync ourselves with what’s good for us?

1.) Ask the Universe for Help

• Literally write a letter to the Universe (or God). How can you get answers, connections and clues if you haven’t specifically asked for what it is you Seek? My friends and I did this in college one time when we desperately wanted to get a sought after apartment. Not only did it work, but we’ve used this technique since then for various things, with surprisingly consistent results.
• If writing isn’t your style, make a collage of images that embody what it is you seek. If you want to live in California, but don’t see how it’s possible, find magazine pictures of people having fun in the sun, living the lifestyle you imagine. You can never guess what opportunities might come to make it possible.

We think because God is everywhere he must automatically read our minds and lend a hand. God is benevolent, but he still requires our 5% of effort in our envisioning and asking.

2.) Be Flexible

• If we are too fixed on a predetermined outcome, we may reject circumstances, relationships, and paths that are in fact right for us. It isn’t always for us to decide what’s right for us or not; better to be open to what arrives, when it arrives.
• We are not required to know everything ahead of time. We cannot predict how and when opportunity will strike. Have a goal/purpose in mind, and be open and flexible about how questions and requests will be answered.

“God always listens…what I do not utter is that His answers to our prayers are not always what we ask.” –The House of Hawthorne, Erika Robuck

3.) Be on the Watch

• We must be ready for the things we seek to arrive at any time. It’s about being prepared for the Unknown. It’s a seeming contradiction, and I think that’s why so many of us struggle with it.
• We should be diligent artists, ever prepping the canvas of our lives with sufficient gesso, keeping one eye on our paintbrush and one eye on our surroundings. So when Opportunity presents itself, out of the blue—which is always how it likes to work: undetected from our watchful gaze–we will be ready to be divinely inspired and get busy about our work.

Missed Opportunity happens when we are eyeing other people’s filled canvases or are too busy with our head in a techniques book.

We must not get too comfy with What Is, when what can be might be just around the bend. As Emerson makes explicit in his essay, “Circles”:

            “Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the pleasure, the power of to-morrow, when we are building up our being. Of lower states, — of acts of routine             and sense, — we can tell somewhat; but the masterpieces of God, the total     growths           and universal movements of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know        that truth is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess…

            The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be        surprised out of our propriety… and to do something without knowing how or why….            Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is            by abandonment. “A man,” said Oliver Cromwell, “never rises so high as when he    knows not whither he is going.“

This post was submitted by Danica Cantrell

Having earned an English major and philosophy minor in college, Danica Cantrell has an affinity for weighing and pondering the existential crises of life. She enjoys expanding her mind with classic literature and having a perpetual adventure on the horizon.While still young, she has done a fair amount of traveling, having been to: Sweden, Austria, Prince Edward Island, and Arizona to name a few. The combination of wanderlust and desire to know her purpose led her to creative avenues such as paper crafting and creating her own blog Free Wheeling Woman Unbound. She is currently living in Cape Cod with her Aunt and Grandma, working as a Caregiver with the Elderly in their homes.