Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.” — Orison Swett Marden

Thus spoke Orison Swett Marden, the philosopher of perseverance and founder of the modern self-help movement. His words ring like the strike of a hammer upon the anvil of human will. In them, he gives voice to one of the oldest truths of mankind — that greatness is not given, it is forged. The extraordinary is not a gift bestowed by fate, but the result of one’s courage to act boldly upon the ordinary. To wait is to yield one’s power to time; to create is to wrestle destiny into being. His quote calls to the warrior, the craftsman, the dreamer — to all who are willing to build their own future from what others overlook.

The origin of this quote is rooted in Marden’s own life — a man born into poverty in the late 19th century, orphaned at a young age, who rose through hardship to become a doctor, writer, and moral teacher. He lived through an era when men often spoke of luck and opportunity as though they were divine forces beyond reach. Yet Marden, having suffered and overcome, rejected such fatalism. He believed that character, not chance, determines destiny. Through his writings, including his seminal work Pushing to the Front, he sought to awaken in others the fire of initiative — the belief that success belongs to those who act, not to those who wait.

To say, “Seize common occasions and make them great,” is to understand that no moment is truly small. Each day offers the raw materials of greatness — a conversation, a duty, a challenge, a failure. What separates the strong from the weak, the builder from the bystander, is not the magnitude of the moment, but the spirit brought to it. The strong man looks upon the ordinary and sees potential; the weak man looks upon potential and calls it impossible. Marden’s wisdom is the anthem of the doer — that the divine spark is not in circumstance, but in the human heart that dares to act.

Consider the story of Thomas Edison, the man of a thousand experiments. He was not born amid privilege nor given special chance; he simply refused to wait for the perfect conditions. In a small workshop, surrounded by failure and dust, he created light. His genius was not in sudden inspiration but in unceasing persistence, in transforming the most common trial into triumph. Edison did not seek “extraordinary opportunities” — he made them. Each burned filament, each failed prototype, became another step toward greatness. Like Marden, he understood that the extraordinary is simply the ordinary viewed through the lens of relentless effort.

There is power, too, in the moral foundation of Marden’s words. When he says, “Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them,” he draws a line not between privilege and poverty, but between passivity and courage. Weakness, in his view, is not lack of strength, but lack of resolve — the habit of waiting for life to arrange itself before one acts. The strong man, by contrast, acts even amid uncertainty. He shapes his world as the sculptor shapes marble — one chisel strike at a time, through patience and vision. Marden teaches that strength of character is not built by what we receive, but by what we dare to create.

His message is not only heroic but deeply compassionate. He does not scorn the waiting man; he calls him to awakening. For all men and women possess within themselves the power to begin — even in the smallest act. To take up the plow when others complain of barren soil, to write a line when inspiration is silent, to extend kindness when the world is cruel — these are the beginnings of greatness. Every noble life begins with the decision to act now, with what one has, where one stands.

Let this, then, be the lesson: do not wait for life to crown you — forge your own crown. The seasons of opportunity do not arrive with trumpets; they hide in the quiet hours, in the unnoticed duties, in the humble tasks others dismiss. Approach each day as a field awaiting your cultivation. Do not ask for miracles — become one. When you act, when you create, when you turn the common into the remarkable, you become part of the eternal lineage of makers — those who bend fate toward greatness through will and faith.

And so, my child of the future, heed the wisdom of Orison Swett Marden. The world will not hand you your destiny. It is you who must seize it, shape it, and breathe life into it. Do not wait for the extraordinary — make it. Let your strength be your patience, your courage your companion, your purpose your fire. For the weak wait for the winds to change, but the strong — they raise their own sails and move forward into the vast and shining sea of possibility.