4. Variety and great variety of human wants is one of the fundamental causes of opportunity. The capacities or talents of men are almost infinite in their variety. But their wants are equally varied, and so it happens that among a civil ized, wide-awake, energetic people no man can fail to find opportunity for the exercise of his particular talent.
Furthermore, opportunity is created by the grow ing desire for a harmonious combination of want satis factions. In dietetics this desire for harmony leads to combinations of foods which will most please the palate. A French table d'hote dinner is not the prod uct of accident or chance, but of a psychological law, the aim being to have the sequence of dishes such that there shall be, not repletion and surfeit, but a cre scendo of satisfaction, the last dish pleasing the palate more than the first.
As the wants of society increase and multiply, new opportunities open up in business. The catalogs of mail order houses, presenting a fairly complete list of the ordinary comforts, luxuries and necessities of today, contain hundreds, if not thousands, of articles which would not have been found in similar catalogs made in 1890. Our ideas of comfort and luxury have changed, and every change has brought opportunity in business.
If a sculptor should attempt to represent oppor tunity in a statue, I suspect that Ile would be puzzled by the discovery that his goddess needed new features and a new gown every day-, for opportunity is the child of change and progress. Thousands of men do not recognize her when they meet her; they may know how she looked yesterday or last month when she guided John Doe to success, but in her new dress to day she is a stranger.1 .Men who are blind to opportunity are always mere imitators. They imagine that if they imitate the policies and tactics of certain successful men they themselves will succeed, not realizing that the men whom they imitate were not themselves imitators, but men whose penetrating vision saw thru all the disguises of opportunity.
5. Is there a laze) of opportunity?—Broadly speak ing a business opportunity is a combination of cir cumstances that creates for us a profitable market for something which we have to sell or may be able to produce. If this definition is correct, we cannot accept the old proverb about opportunity always knocking once at every man's door, for opportunity does not knock at any man's door. Man himself must perceive the conditions which make opportunity and promptly take possession. If a man perceives an
opportunity to increase his business or to start a new business and does not act vigorously, the opportunity is lost to him. Somebody else seizes it.
I think we may formulate a law of opportunity as follows: Opportunity offers itself to men in propor tion to their ability, their will for action, their power of vision, their experience and their knowledge of business. Inversely, opportunity is concealed from men in proportion to their slothfulness, their reliance upon others and their passion for imitation.
Evidently opportunity in business is not merely a chance to make money which any man may act upon if he is lucky enough to discover it. An excellent opportunity may exist in the presence of hundreds of men, and yet not be seen by any one of them, or they may all lack the necessary ability or experience and be unable to take advantage of it. To such men, owing to their unfitness, it is not opportunity at all, but merely a set of business conditions awaiting the 1424, eye of the master man.
bid If our law of opportunity is correct—and I believe it is—no man has any right to complain about his lack of opportunity, or to set up in defense of his fail ure the claim that be never really had a chance. Op portunity is clearly a relative term. On the one side are the business conditions pregnant with profit, on the other side is the fit man able to call the profit into existence. When these two meet we have opportu nity. For the ignorant man of weak will and no ex perience there can be no opportiunity. Nobody seeks his services however cheaply he offers them. In the current of affairs be is merely driftwood.
6. Opportunity and ability.—It is important that a man in business should have a fairly correct idea of his mental power. He should not underestimate his ability, for then he will never do himself justice, be ing fearful lest he tackle a job too difficult for him. On the other hand, he must not overestimate his abil ity, for then he may undertake tasks for which he is not really fitted. As a rule, it is wise to err, if at all, in the direction of self-confidence. A man who iS working in company with men abler than himself, or who does not hesitate to attack a problem which seems a little beyond his powers, will often make mistakes, but in the long run he will be more successful than if he practises excessive caution, for he will all the time be growing stronger and wiser.