The Reunion | The Window of Opportunity that Reunites Us with Our Lot of Fortune

The word reunion has its roots in French. It means, ‘an act of coming together again’. A reunion–be it with your family, your friends from school, or even with former work colleagues–is a brief window of opportunity when you reconnect with people whom you haven’t seen in a long time.

To do so, you have to organise a little or a big get-together to get everyone together. It doesn’t happen naturally. There is planning involved before the execution of the event. From funerals, to weddings, to childbirths, to alumni gatherings–we all get together, we chat, we see how everyone is doing and where their lives have ventured to.

Even though we reunite, usually for a brief window of time, we realise we cannot stay. We are meant to go back to our lives and head off on our respective journeys.

Unless, of course, you experience an unexpected chance encounter with someone at this reunion, and before you know it, a part of your life that was once steeped in darkness, is coming to fruition in the light of day.

A Window of Opportunity

A window of opportunity is a short, often fleeting time period during which a rare and desired action can be taken. Once the window closes, the opportunity may never come again. It probably will return, as all things do, at some point in time…

But once that window closes and the light ceases to shine through, it may be decades or even centuries before it returns again. If you miss the boat, especially this particular boat, another one isn’t coming; not for a while, at least.

That darned window of opportunity. By the way, darned isn’t a cuss word or anything like that. The word’s origins, which lay in the early 17th century, comes from dialect dern which means ‘to hide’. The word is possibly of West Germanic origin and has been compared with Middle Dutch dernen ‘stop holes in (a dike)’.

We’ve got a word here with a dual meaning. To hide. To stop holes. Hide what and stop what hole?

Imagine an opportunity of a lifetime was presented to you. You didn’t actually have to do anything to have it fall into your lap. It came to find you.

Is the Goddess Dike playing dice? Are we going to take a chance on something we have done nothing to earn?

Justice

In ancient Greek culture, Dike or Dice is the goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement. She and her mother are the personifications of justice. Dike is depicted as a young, slender woman carrying a balance scale and wearing a laurel wreath. The constellation of Libra is thought to represent her distinctive symbol. Dike ruled over human justice, while her mother Themis ruled over divine justice.

Together, they brought the two sides of the coin into harmony and into balance. But what is cosmic balance? What is weighed before balance is restored?

I must admit I find it really hard to read old dusty books about the Greek Gods and Goddesses. I’ve never been able to get through the books. It’s smarty-pants elitist and so academic that you can smell the perfectly-pressed polo tee of the person who wrote it.

But back then, in Ancient Greece, not that I was there or anything like that, these Gods and Goddesses were not caged in libraries and museums. They were a living embodiment of the trials and tribulations of life.

When divine law was violated, these Gods and Goddesses would descend onto earth to met out justice to those who…

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Adam Smith, an economist and the father of capitalism, often spoke and wrote of the law of unintended consequences, one of the building blocks of economic theory.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the French economic journalist Frédéric Bastiat, often distinguished in his writing between the “seen” and the “unseen” aspects of our unintended consequences. The seen were the obvious and visible consequences of an action or policy. The unseen were the less obvious, and often unintended, consequences.

The law of unintended consequences is at work always and everywhere.

Along with Dike, there was also Adikia, the goddess and personification of injustice and wrong-doing. Adikia was usually represented as a woman covered in spots being dragged by her opposite (you could say sister), Dike, the goddess of justice, with one hand, while in the other she held a staff which she beat her with.

The Greek meaning of adikia places its focus beyond the singular act of sin to include the whole process of sin from commission to consequence. It is used to describe someone with a twisted moral character.

The offence of sin that incurs guilt sets in motion a process of destruction that affects the individual and his community; unless the evil of this deed is checked by correcting the offender or making him or her atone for their sin.

This can be done through rehabilitation and restitution; and if that doesn’t work, there are always penalties and punishments that can be wielded out.

Sounds kind of like karma, don’t you think?

Karma

We usually think of karma as you get what you give, you reap what you have sowed and so on. But this is a simple equation that does not account for one of the chief aims of human existence: growth and development.

The entire purpose of seizing a window of opportunity is to grow and develop. When we seize this brief, small and fleeting window of opportunity, we do not know what will come to pass. We do not know exactly what we have signed up for. But what we definitely have not signed up for is things remaining the same.

We want change. We are seizing this window of opportunity because we want to grow and develop. We want to create wealth, abundance and fortune that we have never seen or witnessed in our lives.

We seize the window of opportunity because we are seeking our lot of fortune. And why do we seek our lot of fortune?

The clock has struck 12 and our time has come.