It is never easy to visualize the present moment and calculate how quickly it will have been an opportunity that has gone. Some decisions mature much sooner than expected, and when one realizes it, the hesitation itself has already borne fruit. A mere five-year interval creates a new reality, in which the past has materialized into visible consequences from which one can only learn. One learns, of course, but the knowledge acquired does not help much in overcoming that initial difficulty in the present.