The Value of Opportunity

I am sitting in the airport at Addis Abeba, Ethiopia waiting for My next connecting flight. Left Myanmar ten hours ago and have two more locations this trip to visit for potential sites for our aquaculture system. 

Myanmar struck me emotionally in a fashion I have not been used to in the past. I always thought if you worked hard, gave it your all, life would sooner or later open opportunities for you and the quality of your existence would improve. 

In Myanmar that simply is not true and I am now realizing that is not true in most countries around the world including the USA. Chance, circumstance, fate, or the luck of the draw can all deny the hardest worker, the most dedicated student, the opportunity to live as Plato once put it, "the good life". People work hard in Myanmar but a military run government here the past 50 plus years has created an infrastructure that simply offers little or no hope for a better life, not for the working adult nor for their children. 

But in America as well, where you are born, the cultural group in which you find yourself, even the pressure of a pre-determined peer group can deny even the smartest, the best looking, the most studious person a shot at " the good life". 

I have been very fortunate. I have exceeded my best and wildest hopes and dreams given my beginnings and initial station in life. I used to joke that I made things happen by "force of Wills". 

Reflecting on what I have seen these past few days and what I have yet to observe on this trip, it has become painfully obvious to me that without the help and kindness of certain "key" individuals that crossed my path as my life unfolded even my intelligence and my drive (forget good looks, they were not present), in all probability would not have yielded me the wonderful and comfortable adult life I have had and continue to experience. 

So, as we are about to grow this company, build sustainable shrimp and fish farms, and produce a good degree of wealth and opportunity, I am going to look for those who join our team, who cross my path, who are loyal, are self motivated, etc., I intend to make sure they have the opportunities to have that better, that good life. 

Theodore Roosevelt supposedly once said, "opportunity is rarer than ability". 

I think finally, I know what he meant.