The Halcyonite

by: Cosmo V. (Grade 11)

I have been looking for opportunity – maybe in the light of a feeling of stagnation, procured in me by the everlasting lockdown and restrictions; maybe because of my recently entering the Diploma Program, coming one step closer to tertiary education, and working. This struggle yielded the thought, “If I had the freedom, what would be the place to go to have the most opportunity?” all in hopes of ultimately finding personal success. 

The answer? Well. According to publications: Denmark. To some articles: Canada. And I did also see mentions of Switzerland and Norway. However, this does not entirely answer the question of how to find “opportunity,” because the word in-of-itself is not well defined. One uses “opportunity” as an ‘umbrella term’ in many of these contexts, so I feel it is my obligation to establish that opportunity is a nuanced, individualised, often subjective concept. Economically, all sorts of indicators can measure opportunity: Real GDP per head, Net national disposable income per head, Household net wealth per head etc., though I feel no need to go down the hole of having to explain these. 

Anyhow, in my moments of research and curiosity, I stumbled upon Indian-born, American economist and the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University, Raj Chetty. This man has dedicated countless hours to understanding and decrypting economic and social opportunity (in the United States). His efforts cannot be summed up, only exemplified with a few of the works he has graced our world with:

• “Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States” from June 2014
• “The Impacts of Neighbourhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects” from December 2017

I encourage you to take a look at them, available as PDFs on the Harvard website. His conclusions often outline that the “American Dream” – a product of rapid development – is dead, with economic opportunity and economic well-being having the potential to be substantially better in the earlier alluded to places. From his publications, however, insight was gained, yet an answer has not been reached by me. 

This is because a lot of his work studies the opportunity cost of being in certain places – often segregated, neglected and poorly structured towns with little access to adequate education and employment – in order for his studies to have a consequence on policies and outlooks. Including the good his work does now, his verdicts concerning outside countries would often be vaguer than I would have liked them to be. So, when it came to my study of Chetty’s works, the conclusion I came to swiftly brought it all to a close, which would naturally lead me to slightly more abstract thoughts on what opportunity meant to me; on what could possibly represent even further opportunity to me – further than the privileges I have already been born into, not by merit, but by luck.

Thus, with my brainstorming, I established that the size of a market I would want to enter as an entrepreneur, founder, investor, or employee would be important – a market being a potential demand base in any economy. In response to this came the realisation that I have access to markets through the exposure of social media, and of course through my ability and fortune to speak the same languages as so many people (I did the maths: up to 3,900,000,000 people). So, I would not necessarily need to travel for actual exposure to people, with an emphasis on this point being made when one realises that there are approximately 3,500,000,000 daily social media users globally. 

Nevertheless, the analysis remains too economically motivated. Economic opportunity can be found in most large cities (within most countries), with notable names such as: Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, NYC, and – oh, wait – London. The city I happen to live in. Notwithstanding, opportunity, whether social, intellectual, emotional or for personal growth, nonetheless remains “opportunity,” and with such an enormous increase in the usage of social media, one does begin to think: if one can earn a lot by working in the city, but would have to pay a lot to live there, and might not be spiritually or intellectually satisfied living in one (as is my case). Then, with the use of technology, could one just not work in the city, but, from… not the city? The answer is: yes. The reasoning is blurry – the justification for the pursuit of anything to do with opportunity will always depend entirely on one’s definition of it, and everybody is wrong and right simultaneously. The world means nothing, and the universe will always balance its good with its bad, so as to continue to be an indifferent and neutral entity.

On a brighter note, my definition of opportunity considers the individuality of it as an important player in its nuance. In my case, I would want to find a place in which my well-being, physical space, interests and passions could be prioritised. Ultimately, I would not need to find a perfect materialisation of this model, as happiness is found in its own pursuit, so I quite like the general notion of creating a goal for finding opportunities outside of the sphere of my routine, whilst making the most out of what currently exists in my life: the opportunities given to me by education, friends, discoveries, urban life, exposure to multiculturalism, interests, and more. I advise that if, at all, you were to be lost in the pursuit of opportunity, you should think to identify and understand your definition of opportunity; understand how opportunity exists in your current circumstances and, with this basis, create a systematic plan to make use of your opportunities to go further. In my case, ironically enough, it started with me stepping back from social media for a month, starting on November 18th of 2020, and still going strong, allowing me to take the opportunity of time to my benefit.