Make Hay While The Sun Shines (#MY Eng 59)

This is part of a running series about English idioms - less about language, more about life itself. Previously, we covered 'missing the woods for the trees', 'the elephant in the room', 'practising what you preach', blowing hot and cold', 'no smoke without fire', 'one swallow does not make a summer', 'apples and oranges', 'cut to the chase', 'leave no stone unturned', 'that's the way the cookie crumbles', 'can't have your cake and eat it too', 'old is gold', 'putting the cart before the horse', 'mountain out of a molehill', 'pot calling the kettle black', 'bite the bullet', 'go the extra mile', 'silence is golden', 'the devil is in the details', 'sink or swim', 'once bitten twice shy', 'don't count your chickens before they hatch', 'don't put all your eggs into one basket', 'chicken and egg', 'walking on eggshells', 'flogging a dead horse', 'better late than never', 'storm in a teacup', 'between a rock and a hard place', 'darkest before dawn', 'empty vessels make the most noise', 'birds of a feather flock together', 'separate the wheat from the chaff', 'let sleeping dogs lie', 'open a can of worms', 'light at the end of the tunnel', 'trial and error', 'look before you leap', 'lightning in a bottle', 'on the same page', don't judge a book its cover', 'reinvent the wheel', 'shifting gears', 'throwing in the towel', 'jump on the bandwagon', 'passing the buck', 'breaking the ice', 'cracking the code', 'when it rains it pours', 'bigger fish to fry', 'ball is in your court', 'back to the drawing board', 'square peg in a round hole', 'don't rock the boat', 'a whole new ball game', 'burning the midnight oil', 'never say never' and 'get all your ducks in a row'.

Nothing project ever goes according to plan. No timeline proceeds as scheduled.

We're not prophets. We can't see events transpiring far into the future. All plans are built upon assumptions and predictions. It's all a game of guesswork.

Still, that doesn't mean we should just raise our hands in surrender and leave our lives to be swept away by the vagaries of Fate. Although exerting total control over our destiny is an exercise of futility, we must nonetheless stay alert in keeping an eye on the horizon for dark clouds or bright skies...

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The trick is to look out for opportunities and openings. As the saying goes, fortune favours the brave. Those who prosper are those who are quick to make hay while the sun shines.

Of course, life isn't always fair. Some people are blessed with blazing sunlight all year long. Others have to shiver through months in the frigid darkness of winter. In an ideal world, equality of opportunities is what everyone deserves. But the cold hard truth is that most societies are from that utopia.

But no matter how long our winter nights may be, dawn will still break. Maybe just for a brief moment, or at unexpected hours. The weather may be beyond our control. But when the sun rises high in the skies, we have to be ready to grab the chance to work on the fields.

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Like most of you, life is filled with long miserable winter nights. Any sunny day is a luxury. And my family weren't blessed with a beautiful farm and we all had to toil hard on the fields of others.

Do I bemoan my bad luck? No. I'm still born and bred in a pleasant place. The nearby forest provides enough logs to keep the fire burning in the deepest of winters. The sun still shines brightly at intermittent moments.

Right now, the sun is at its zenith. I can't (and won't) say more. Instead of humble-bragging over my blog and social media, time is precious and better spent on, well, making hay...