Opportunity : optimizing life's chances
"Can you recognize an opportunity when it comes your way? Even though the concept seems fairly basic, most people harbor regrets about missed opportunities that in retrospect might have significantly improved their lives. This book will give you the critical tools to sort through the complexities that often obscure the perception of an opportunity and help you take full advantage of what author Donald Morris calls "high-end opportunities"--Pivotal situations that can change your life for the better. Morris begins by developing a model of opportunity in the abstract, analyzing its elements and the contexts and frameworks that affect our recognition of opportunities. Drawing from a wide range of applications, including investing, business, law, criminology, gambling, and even religion, he shows how opportunities can be defined in various contexts. He also examines highly undesirable situations, where opportunity is lacking, such as poverty and historical instances of slavery, to further illustrate, by way of contrast, the defining characteristics of opportunity. How does a significant opportunity differ from a simple option? How does taking advantage of opportunities differ from being an opportunist? Does our ability to predict the future affect our opportunities? What do we mean by equality of opportunity? By addressing these and other probing questions, Morris shows how to develop more critical perceptions of real opportunities."--Publisher's website
Print Book, English, 2006
Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y., 2006
461 pages ; 24 cm
9781591024026, 1591024021
62895826
An opportunity model
Piecing together opportunity from its natural habitats : investing, economics, gambling, criminology, and marketing
Other contexts of opportunity : law, game theory, finance, business strategy, and entrepreneurship
Other contexts : religion and equality of opportunity
The absence of opportunity : poverty
Absence of opportunity : stigmatization, hell, slavery, predestination, and Camus' Stranger
Opportunism
The framework : a worldview
The elements and context
Predicting the future
Engaging and predicting the future, applications : investing, economics, and gambling
Engaging and predicting the future, applications : criminology, marketing, law, and human nature
Engaging the future, applications : superstition, induction, and prayer
Hierarchy and opportunity
Pulling it together
The nutshell of opportunity : sayings, proverbs, aphorisms, quips, and poems