Working with a White Board

          A group of youngsters are working on a project. The organisation they are associated with has launched some new mission the pilot of which has been successful, and these youngsters have been told to script and shoot a few videos advertising the mission. The videos are going to be shared over social media.

          Script is written on time – two of them – and the camera-person gets the set prepared. The scene is of a young girl sitting on a desk, against the backdrop of a books almirah on the right and a the right half of a white board on the left. The video is going to be made in shots. Some shots get taken successfully. At this point, one of us is checking the previous shots and some person from the organisation enters the room. He sees the shots and notices the empty white board in the background.

          ‘No offense meant, but don’t you guys think this white board looks a bit empty? You could’ve taken a better setting...’

          Instantly the video editor, who sat close buy, spoke up: ‘This empty board is deliberate! You see, it’ll be used to display clips and pictures related to the mission. Otherwise, we would have to do with small, pocket-sized corners. That would be cumbersome. This white board is the best thing!’

          Two eyes may see one thing at the same time, from the same angle, very differently, sometimes contrary to each other. What one sees as disorder or complaint in something, the other may find in it a big, big opportunity. For an inexperienced, for a pessimistic, a white board will be spoiling the elegance of the video, and for the opportunist and optimist, the white empty space will look like room for adding extra content.

          Opportunities have a massive wardrobe. You can never appropriately guess the garb in which an opportunity is going to ring the bell at the door. A seasoned wise man, an opportunist, knows that the best way to recognise an opportunity rightly is to start finding opportunity in everything. For an ordinary man, not being able to fly is a limitation, a problem; for Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, it is an opportunity to make an invention. For one man, a long journey is a trouble, because he is afraid he will get tired, and for the other, it might be an opportunity to read or listen to a book, attend a long call, do some research or learn something new.

          Nevertheless, one special thing about this hide-and-seek game with opportunities is that they can also choose for hiding an empty canvas, a still scene, and a blank page.