What You Can Learn From An Acorn

Opportunities are everywhere if you'll just take the time to see them.Today I went for a walk (it’s a beautiful blue-sky day), and I saw on the ground lots of acorns. As I looked at them, I remembered pieces of a quote but not all of it…something about “how many trees in an acorn”.

I thought it might be nice to have an acorn on my desk as a reminder.

I looked for one with the little cap on it, thinking it had more of the “look” of an acorn. I couldn’t see one.

I was just getting ready to have a negative thought about not being able to find one when the breeze picked up just enough to rustle the trees…and a fully capped acorn landed at my feet!

I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was a reminder to just *ask* for what you want.

As I picked up that acorn, it occurred to me that “asking” is really all it takes. I looked around at all the acorns on the ground and decided to pick up more to put in a jar on my desk. As I picked them up, I realized the acorns were just like opportunities: they are everywhere if you look for them.

I picked up large ones, small ones, I even found a few more with the caps on. I got so many that I was in danger of dropping some that I had already carefully selected.

And then I realized, that was a lesson, too.

Nurture the opportunities that you have. Because there are so many opportunities of all shapes and sizes, you must select the right ones for your purpose/passion and then work carefully with those. Know when you have enough to handle and don’t keep grabbing all that you see just because it’s there.

So, today’s walk yielded a few nice “lessons”:

  • Ask for what you want.
  • Have gratitude when you get it – appreciate.
  • Opportunities are everywhere, you just have to be open to seeing them.
  • You can take advantage of more than one opportunity at a time.
  • Once you select your opportunities, go for it! Nurture them to grow them.
  • Realize that it’s more important to make the most of the opportunity that you have than to keep going after everything that shows up on your radar screen.

It all starts with Askingand that’s something you can do right now!