Essay · Reflection
How to Not Wait
for Opportunity
From 2013 to 2025 — to the self who blamed circumstance,
and to the self who waits no longer
Chapter One · 2013
There's no one like that around me
In my early twenties, I wanted something desperately. I was hungry to learn, full of heat toward the world. But looking around, there was no one to share that heat with. The kind of person you only ever meet in books.
Back then I wrote in my journal: "There's no one like that around me. I've only ever seen such a person in books." And I asked myself: am I too out of step with everyone else? Am I the only one looking in a different direction from a place where I don't belong?
But I couldn't bring myself to fit in insincerely. So I waited. For someone like that to appear. For the place where I belonged to arrive.
"Always earnest, positive, composed — someone with pursuit, aspiration, and passion. That's who I need."
— April 2013, from my journal
Chapter Two · 2014
Opportunity doesn't come to me
A year passed. I entered university and studied. By most measures I was doing well. But something felt stuck. I didn't want to study for grades — I wanted real learning. I needed someone who could draw out what I was capable of.
The version of me then wrote: "There's something I lack. Not myself — the opportunities." And then added: "Honestly, it's also an excuse. But no one around me points the way or offers the chance to learn."
"If there were someone who could draw out my potential, I'd run at it with everything I have."
I knew, even then. That it was an excuse. But I had no courage to face that directly. Blaming circumstance gave me a reason not to move.
Sooyeon wasn't someone without ability. She wrote clean code; her colleagues called her reliable. She just had one conviction: when she found the right team lead, the right project — then she'd really run.
Three years passed. The team lead changed. The projects changed. But each time, a new reason appeared. This lead doesn't communicate. This project isn't my style. The waiting went on.
"I wasn't blaming the environment. I was looking for reasons not to move."
One day, without asking her team lead, she started a small side project on her own. An hour after work, every evening. Two months later, the result became a shared resource for the whole team. Once she stopped waiting for opportunity, opportunity became visible.
Opportunity doesn't come to those who wait. It appears in front of those who move.
Chapter Three · 2025
When I stopped waiting, things changed
More than a decade has passed. I no longer wait for that kind of person. I no longer wait for that kind of opportunity. Instead I started reaching toward what I was curious about, what I wanted to do, what I couldn't do, and even the things that seemed random.
Dancing taught me something: inspiration comes from small, unexpected places. And it doesn't stay confined to dance. When you change from the inside rather than the outside, entirely different things become possible.
In 2025, reading those old journal entries again, I wrote back: "Nothing and no one else matters. I can do it. Whatever it is. Thank you, past self."
"I don't blame the limits of my situation anymore. I can find my own way through."
— January 2025, a reply written to an old journal entry
How to Not Wait for Opportunity
It took me a decade to find the answer. There is only one way to not wait for opportunity. Don't wait.
Looking back: while I waited, I stood still. While I blamed circumstance, I let the time I could have changed slip by. And when I started moving, opportunity followed without my having to look for it.
It wasn't that there were no opportunities. It was that I wasn't ready. When I changed, the world looked different.
What are you waiting for right now? And while you wait — where are you?
— hian, 2026
