Fortune Cookie #7 - Opportunity Knocks

This week I got to visit my favorite restaurant China Buffet #6 which is named #6 because it is the sixth restaurant the owner started and not something cool like the first five were cursed by a Chinese spirit and this is the first one to succeed. As usual, the meal was wonderful and they soon brought us our fortune cookies. I received the following fortune:

When you learn to be flexible, amazing opportunities reveal themselves!

So, the key to opportunity is flexibility? This must be one of those ancient Chinese secrets that are always being whispered about in dark alleys and billiard rooms, because I have never heard this before. I know of many people who are jealous of a dog's flexibility, but I don't believe those are the types of opportunities that are being suggested here. After all, this was a fortune cookie, not a footnote from the Kama Sutra.

And he just happens to be Chinese!
Coincidence? I think not!

As someone who is always looking for amazing opportunities instead of the regular, run-of-the-mill, day-to-day, boring opportunities, I gave this some serious thought. The most flexible person I could think of was that little Chinese dude Yen in Ocean's Eleven. He became a multi-millionaire in that movie and he only had the opportunity to do so because of his flexibility, so there seems to be some truth to this fortune. Flexibility does present opportunity.

I already stretch every morning, so I have a little flexibility, but it is nowhere near the ability of Yen. He spent a third of those movies folded up into some tiny space. I need to do much more than stretch to even begin to reach his level of elasticity.

Being the lazy mentally-driven intellectual that I am, I need to think about this more before I actually start doing anything. Seriously, what types of opportunities are out there. Yen became rich by using his flexibility as part of a criminal crew. I'm not sure that I want to live a life of crime. Criminals have a tendency to be shot by not only the police, but other criminals. I don't think I want to get shot. It would probably hurt.

If the life of a criminal is off the table, then what is left opportunity-wise for the flexible person? Before Yen turned to a life of crime, he was a circus performer. All I can come up with is a life in the circus or performing as a sideshow freak next to the sword swallowers, basketball playing duck, fire eater, yodeling chicken and bearded lady.

Not only would neither of those lifestyles be very glamorous, but I don't imagine they pay very well either. With a little bit of research, I found that the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually keeps track of this sort of thing. According to eHow.com, contortionists make roughly between $9 and $33 an hour, but those higher paid ones work for places like Cirque de Soleil and everyone knows that getting that type of job relies more on who you know than what you can do.

I have come to the conclusion that this fortune may be true according to the perspective of the people who wrote it, but the Chinese are willing to live in apartments the size of a coffin and work 18 hours a day for $0.43/hour. So, their idea of what qualifies as an amazing opportunity would probably only be mildly tolerable to me.

Once again, I love the China Buffet #6, but have to question the validity of their fortunes.