by Eddy Parham, Organizational Development Guy

Recently while traveling, I saw a billboard that was advertising something or another. While I don't remember what it was advertising, what caught my attention was this caption written in big bold letters - Never say, "I Should Have". I started wondering how many times people look back on opportunities and say "I should have" or "I wish I'd have".

I then remembered a story about a young man who wished to marry the beautiful daughter of a local farmer. He went to the farmer to ask his permission. The farmer looked him over and responded, "Son, go stand out in that field and I'm going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three bulls, you can marry my daughter."

The young man stood in the pasture awaiting the first bull. The barn door opened and out ran the biggest, meanest-looking bull he had ever seen. He decided one of the next bulls had to be a better choice than this one, so he ran over to the side and let the bull pass through the pasture and out of the back gate. The barn door opened again. Unbelievable! He had never seen anything so big and fierce in his life. The bull stood - pawing the ground, grunting, slinging slobber - as it eyed him. Whatever the next bull was like, it had to be a better choice than this one. So once again, he ran to the fence and let the bull pass through the pasture and out of the back gate. The door opened a third time and a smile came across the young man’s face. This was the weakest, scrawniest little bull he had ever seen. This one was his bull. As the bull came running by, he positioned himself just right and jumped at just the exact moment. He grabbed... but the bull had no tail!

Life is full of opportunities. Some will be easy to take advantage of, some will be difficult. But once we let them pass (often in hopes of something better or maybe because we're just scared), those opportunities may never again be available. How many times do we pass on something because we either didn’t see it as an opportunity or were scared of it? If you were around twenty-five years ago, what would you have done if someone were willing to give you the opportunity to sell bottled water? Dismissed bottled water as a passing fad? The list of opportunities that have been missed is almost endless.

Taking advantage of opportunities is not always an easy choice. Usually it will involve some sort of change. And change can be hard and uncomfortable and is something that many folks don't like. But in order for the oak to grow mighty, it had to change from an acorn.