Not Every Opportunity Is Meant for You 🚪⛰️💰

Published: Wed, 04/01/26

Updated: Wed, 04/01/26

Discernment protects you from distractions dressed as blessings.

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The thing nobody tells you about open doors is that some of them may look like welcoming invitations, but can actually be hidden trapdoors—a supposed opportunity that can suddenly drop you into danger, rather than leading you to a better place..

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What is Meant for You, is Meant For You.

My dad was a fisherman back in Jamaica when I was growing up, and he used to say, “Not every mackerel a fish fi yuh pot.” Dad knew that not every opportunity is meant for you. He wasn’t being negative; he was teaching me about discernment: knowing which options actually suit you. Grabbing everything in reach is not ambition. It’s appetite. And unchecked appetite, the urge to take every option, can consume you before the world does.

I think about him every time I scroll through some productivity influencer’s content about “maximising every opportunity” and “never leaving value on the table.” That language — that breathless, grasping language — has convinced an entire generation that discernment is the same thing as fear. That saying 'no' is the same as self-sabotage.

⚔️ The Biome Duel: Warriors of the Tribal Planets.⚔️

“Victory is temporary. Technique is eternal.”

🌍 The Premise

Once every five planetary cycles, warriors from the Tribal Planets Alliance gather for a sacred tradition known as The Biome Duel.

These are not wars.

They are demonstrations of mastery.

Each tribe arrives from a different world shaped by its dominant ecosystem — desert, jungle, oceanic abyss, volcanic highlands, crystalline tundra, or floating cloud forests.

Before the duel begins, the arena morphs into a living biome that reflects the challenger’s home world. Gravity shifts. Terrain evolves. Creatures emerge. The environment itself becomes part of the fight.

The purpose is not domination.

It is the exchange of knowledge — the preservation and evolution of fighting traditions across the galaxy.

Some warriors fight with ancestral weapons.
Others wield living technology.

But every duel begins the same way…

With the Opening Chant of Combat.

🎨 The Challenge

1️⃣ Visual Entry (Required)

Create cinematic concept art showing one of the following:

• A Biome Arena transforming into a tribal environment
• A Tribal Planet Warrior preparing for combat
• A duel moment inside the biome arena

Your design should include elements like:

Alien terrain or ecosystems

African-inspired warrior aesthetics

Futuristic weapons or ritual armor

Environmental combat advantages (sand storms, vines, gravity shifts, etc.)

Accepted formats:

AI-generated images

Digital illustration

Hand-drawn art

3D renders

📁 Submit as JPG or PNG (max 5MB)

🛡 Optional Concept Art Bonus

You may also submit additional visuals showing:

• Multiple warriors from different Tribal Planets
• Weapon designs unique to their biome
• Ritual armor or ceremonial markings

Example warrior archetypes:

The Dune Runner of Khar-Sahel – desert spear duelist.

The Vineblade of Nzadi Prime – jungle acrobat fighter.

The Storm Surfer of Maji-Tano – aquatic combat specialist.

The Ironback of Kilimara – volcanic gravity fighter.

✍🏽 Text Entry (Required)

Write a 250-word excerpt of the Opening Duel Chant performed before combat begins.

This chant can include:

• Invocation of the biome spirits
• Recognition of the challenger’s lineage
• Warnings about the dangers of the arena
• Celebration of the exchange of martial knowledge

The chant may be spoken by:

The Arena Keeper

A Tribal Elder

A combat AI ceremonial system

The warriors themselves

Tone suggestions:

Ancient.
Ritualistic.
Ceremonial.
Powerful.

🧠 Afrofuturist Edge

This competition imagines a future where African combat traditions evolve into interstellar martial arts systems.

Tech and tradition merge.

Warriors carry ancestral memory embedded in weapons, combat dances coded into neural implants, and biome-adapted fighting techniques developed across generations.

It’s not about defeating opponents.

It’s about expanding the art of combat across civilisations.

🏆 Prizes

🥇 First Place
$50 + full newsletter feature + inclusion in the Tribal Planets Arena Codex.

🥈 Second Place
$25 + feature in the newsletter.

🥉 Third Place
$10 + honourable mention in the Hall of Warriors gallery.

Selected entries may also appear in a future visual compendium of Afrofuturist warriors and combat arenas.

📅 Deadline

5th April 2026

📬 How to Submit

Email your entry to:

Marksmanstudios1@gmail.com

Subject line:
Biome Duel Submission

Include:

• Your image file(s)
• Your 250-word duel chant
• Optional social media handle

⚔️ In the Tribal Planets Alliance, combat is not destruction.

It is memory in motion.

And every biome remembers the warriors who fought within it.⚔️

You know I’m a big fan of the Stoic traditions, and I discovered a word - prohairesis—the faculty of choice, the thing separating a human from a rock rolling downhill. Epictetus, once a slave before he was a philosopher, understood this better than most. He said wisdom isn’t knowing what to pursue but what to leave alone. Not because you can’t reach it, but because it's not yours.

From my time here on the planet, I would say that a large majority of opportunities that destroy you rarely look dangerous. They look like blessings. They come dressed well, with recommendations and with exciting metrics. The trap is beautiful. That’s the point.

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As a speculative fiction writer, I imagine futures shaped by choices. In stories and real life, survivors aren’t those who seize everything, but those who pause to ask: What will this cost me beyond money?

Two things we tend to never consider in our calculations are time and identity drift. Wasting time is self-explanatory and makes sense. But not so for Identity Drift. You say yes to the wrong thing, and three years later, you’re good at something you hate, surrounded by people you dislike, wishing you could be anywhere else but here. That’s not success. That’s a very well-compensated prison.

In rural Jamaica, you learn to read the weather. You feel the air shift before rain. You watch the sea. You develop an intelligence rooted in attention, not logic. That’s discernment—not fear. It’s pattern recognition trained by consequence.

Marcus Aurelius — a man who had every opportunity in the known world laid at his feet every single morning — wrote in his private journals that the first task of a rational person is to ask whether a thing is within their control and whether it aligns with their nature. Not whether it’s available. Not whether other people want it. Whether it’s theirs.

Most opportunities are not yours.

That’s not pessimism. That’s math.

The philosopher Derek Parfit once argued that our sense of identity is far more fragile than we admit — we are not a fixed psyche hurtling through time but patterns that can be slowly, almost invisibly, rewritten by circumstance. I think about that every time someone takes a job they didn’t want because the title looked right, or signs a contract because the moment felt too good to question. They thought they were grabbing an opportunity. In fact, they were agreeing to become someone they were not.

A year ago, I made the same mistake. Luckily, I recognised the error of my decision two months later and immediately extracted myself from the situation.

So here’s what I’m actually asking you to do — not as a creative, not as a writer, but as a person trying to stay coherent across a lifetime:

Lean back and ask yourself: Will this opportunity bring me closer to who I want to be and the life I want to create? Don’t rely on surface promises or persuasive pitches. Examine where it will actually take you, considering your values, strengths, and long-term goals. Then take your time in the moment and choose.

Remember my old man’s wisdom: Not every mackerel belongs in your pot. Choose intentionally. Discernment isn’t the enemy of ambition—it’s how you pursue what truly matters. Reject paths that aren’t yours, and deliberately walk toward the door with your name on it. Start today: choose your door, not just any open one.

Peace, love and power.