Opportunity Is Not Owed

Mar 15, 2026 Features / Columnists, News

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By Arrianna Mahase

(Kaieteur News) – There was a time when I believed I was indispensable.As a student on a robotics team, many of my peers and I worked tirelessly. We spent long evenings building, troubleshooting, and preparing to represent both our organization and our country. We were proud of the work we were doing and the effort we were putting in.

And quietly, many of us shared the same thought, we were carrying the organization.

At the time, that belief felt justified. We were the ones doing the visible work; competing, presenting, and representing. When you are the one putting in the effort that everyone can see, it is easy to believe your contribution is the foundation holding everything together.

Over the years, my role shifted. I moved from being a student participant to becoming a robotics coach, a software developer, and eventually a business owner responsible for creating opportunities for others. Perspective has a way of changing when life moves you to the other side of opportunity.

My mentor often says a phrase that has stayed with me, “Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.” As students, we believed our talent and effort made us indispensable. But, talent was never a rare resource. What was rare was the structure that made it possible for that talent to develop ; the mentors, the resources, the planning, and the people who believed in us before we fully believed in ourselves.

In my own business, I have sometimes seen a similar pattern emerge. In moments of frustration or disagreement, employees have occasionally spoken with great confidence about being the ones who “run the business.” That perspective is understandable. When you are immersed in the day-to-day work, your contribution can feel central to everything, and in truth, that work does matter a great deal.

What is not always as visible, however, is the broader burden carried by the person who built the enterprise in the first place: the financial risk, the personal sacrifice, the sleepless nights, the responsibility of meeting payroll, and the many difficult decisions that determine whether the business can continue to stand and grow. We tend to see our own labour most clearly because it is closest to us. What is easier to miss is the larger structure, investment, and accountability that make that labour possible.

This is not a criticism of any one individual or workplace. It is, rather, a very human instinct. When we are deeply invested in our role, it can be easy to mistake meaningful contribution for full responsibility, or participation for ownership. And when opportunity becomes familiar, we may sometimes forget that it was created through vision, sacrifice, and leadership long before we stepped into it.

Living in a country like Guyana, where new opportunities are emerging rapidly, this mindset is worth examining. Across all sectors, doors are opening that did not exist just a decade ago. Programs and businesses are expanding, and more platforms are being created for young people to develop their skills and make their voices heard. But, opportunity alone does not guarantee growth. What we do with opportunity matters just as much as the opportunity itself.

“To whom much is given, much is expected”, is another phrase my mentor often repeated. When I was younger, I sometimes interpreted that statement as pressure. It felt like she was instilling guilt. I understand this phrase differently now that my role has shifted. That phrase does not mean that you owe the organization. It means opportunity comes with responsibility. That responsibility is to give your best effort in fulfilling your role. This includes putting in the work, going the extra mile, taking initiative and continuously developing your skillset to produce the best possible outcome. It means contributing positively to help create space and access for individuals to come.

Opportunity represents investment. Someone believed enough in your potential to create space for you. Someone spent time building the platform. Someone took the risk of funding the idea. Someone chose to mentor, guide, and support the development of people they believed could carry something meaningful forward. Expectation, in that sense, is not punishment or instilling guilt. It is stewardship.

As Guyana continues to grow and develop, we must understand that talent alone will not determine who leads the future. Talent has never been scarce. The people who will lead are those that respond to opportunity as something entrusted to them rather than owed to them. It is the people that respond with gratitude that will lead sectors. And, gratitude does not mean silence or submission. It means understanding that we were entrusted with something valuable which carries responsibility, the responsibility to build something meaningful with what we have been given.

It is easy to believe we are carrying the room when we believe that we are the ones doing the visible work. Effort can create that illusion. But maturity sometimes requires us to pause and ask a harder question, Did the room exist before we walked into it? In many cases, it did. Someone built it. Someone sustained it and made the difficult decisions that allowed it to exist long enough for us to step into it.

Recognizing that truth does not diminish our contributions. It places them in context. When we understand the value of the opportunity we are given, our role shifts from simply benefiting from it to expanding it. We begin to see ourselves not as people who are owed something, but as people who have been trusted with something. That distinction matters because when access is seen as an entitlement, it often produces frustration. But when access is understood as a responsibility, it produces growth.

Perhaps the real measure of maturity is not how loudly we declare that we are carrying the room, but how intentionally we build rooms for others once we have been given the chance to stand inside one.

Opportunity is not owed. It is entrusted. And what we choose to build with it will determine whether we were truly ready for it in the first place.

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• Arrianna Mahase, opportunity, Owed, Student

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