Comedian Omid Djalili recently posted a memory of unrequited teenage infatuation that serves as a reminder that your biggest regrets one day are likely to be those things you did not do.

He was responding to news that 80’s pop sensation Sade has just turned 65 years old, and he recalled his one encounter with her.

She might have rejected any advance he made out of hand. She was older, and he a teenager with questionable dance moves, but to this day Omid Djalili has no idea about what might have been. It’s a delightful story and a lesson to all of us that life-changing opportunities seldom present themselves twice, and if you let them pass you by, you will never know what could have been…

This is Omid’s post: “At a party in West London in 1983 (I was 17) she stood laughing at me when I was dancing. She did not look 7 years older than me and I genuinely thought I could mesmerise her into my life with ludicrous moves. She laughed and I danced. We didn’t say a word to each other. When 1985 came round and Smooth Operator became my fav song on the radio, I nearly fainted when I saw it
was her on TV singing it. I told my dad the story of dancing for her and our ‘deep non verbal communication’ as he was reading the newspaper. I told him in all earnestness that she could have been my wife if only I’d opened my mouth & said something. He just said “Bache gooz” which is Persian for “fucking grow up.”

It’s a wonderful “what-if/if only” story. The reality is that opportunities pass us by
daily. Some people are better than others at spotting and seizing them and we will often ascribe their success to “luck” or “being in the right place at the right time.” The reality is that some people are more opportunistic than others
and ensure they are open to new things. If you go through life shutting down opportunity, you will be less inclined to see the next one. It’s about being open to new ideas, and as Omid as learned, acting on them.

Ideas without action are just distant memories.