“Waiting”: A Poem About Not Letting Another Opportunity Go

Most missed opportunities do not disappear in one dramatic moment. They slip by quietly while we are busy with something else. Jonathan Anthony Burkett’s poem “Waiting” is a confession about that, and a promise to stop.

The poem

Truth be told
I’ll never let another opportunity go
Surprising it might sound
I’ve allowed many to pass by me
Time after time
Nothing was distracting my mind
But my past, television, and friends
Celebrating their opportunities of succession
In their lifetime
An opportunity to triumph
That’s what I’m waiting for
While forgetting the past
And looking forward toward a brighter sunshine

— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated (2012)

A confession and a promise

The poem starts with a vow: “Truth be told / I’ll never let another opportunity go.” Then it admits why the vow is needed: “I’ve allowed many to pass by me / Time after time.”

It names the distractions plainly: “my past, television, and friends.” None of these is bad in itself. The past holds lessons, television can help you relax, and friends matter. The problem comes when they fill the whole mind, so that the speaker is watching others “Celebrating their opportunities of succession” instead of building his own.

The last lines say what he is waiting for, and how: “An opportunity to triumph,” while “forgetting the past / And looking forward toward a brighter sunshine.” Waiting, in this poem, is not sitting still. It is getting ready, so that when the chance comes, you are not too distracted to see it.

Three distractions, one life

The past. Jonathan had more past than most people his age: a childhood split between Jamaica and Miami, years without a stable home, seizures and a brain tumor. After his surgery in 2006, he made himself a promise. In his words, “I promised myself that until the answers came, I’d focus on success and not on the past.”

Television. As a boy in Jamaica he never became very interested in TV, though he loved watching dancehall tapes and learned to dance from them. After surgery, living by a highway without a car, a job or money, he spent his days thinking, writing, watching television and reading his roommate’s books. The difference between those activities is what this poem is about. Some things pass the time. Others build something.

Friends. Friends gave Jonathan places to sleep more than once, and friends’ parents guided him away from bad influences. But he also learned that the wrong company can cost you your future. In January 2006, standing near a graveyard, he decided he needed to change and get away from bad company so he would not die early. As he put it, “it was all about who you hung around with and whether they allowed you to become a follower, a leader, or just yourself.”

Lessons from people who missed their chances

Some of Jonathan’s most important teachers were homeless men he met on the streets. They were not living clean lives themselves, but they encouraged him and warned him about consequences. “They taught me to be the best man that I could be, to try to take advantage of every opportunity and chance presented to me,” he wrote.

An older friend from the street told him he regretted his own life and urged Jonathan to change before it was too late. Jonathan took that to heart and came to believe that “it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.”

Practical steps to act on opportunities

1. Audit your distractions. For one week, notice how much time goes to replaying the past, to screens and to social time that leads nowhere. Awareness comes first.
2. Define the opportunity. Is it a job, a class, a creative project, a business idea? A vague hope is easy to miss. A named goal is easier to spot.
3. Use a 48-hour rule. When a door opens, take one concrete step within two days: send the email, fill out the form, make the call.
4. Choose your circle on purpose. Spend more time with friends who celebrate your goals and less with those who keep you stuck.
5. Prepare while you wait. Learn a skill, save a little, get your documents in order. Readiness turns luck into results.
6. Forgive yourself for missed chances. The poem looks forward “toward a brighter sunshine.” Guilt over old chances can become one more distraction.

Your next opportunity

After a night of hard thinking, Jonathan decided that earth was the best place for him “because at least here I’d have options and opportunities for making my life better.” That is the heart of “Waiting.” As long as you are here, there are options and opportunities. The real question is whether you will be ready when the next one comes.

Jonathan’s own life shows that opportunities often arrive looking ordinary. After he left a shelter, someone helped him get a job right away and a friend helped him find a room to rent. Later, his godmother, Marise Christophe, arranged a surgeon who would not charge him for the operation he needed. Each one was a door. Each one still required him to walk through it.

Read how Jonathan turned his own chances into a writing life in Neglected But Undefeated on the Books page, and find more of his motivating words on the Quotes page.

#jonathananthonyburkett #upstormed #jonathanburkett #neglectedbutundefeated #poetry #opportunity #motivation #goals #focus #selfimprovement