Don't You Wish You Can Time Travel?

   Frustrated. Angry. Livid. All of these emotions you are feeling all because you couldn't come up with the right thing to say in the heat of the moment. Don't you wish you could go back, and rewind the entire situation, and then say the right thing? For example, remember a time when you told your parents that you are getting good grades to avoid punishment, but they later found out that your grades are poor? YEAH. Now you are grounded for a week without a phone until your grades go up. These type of situations make a person retrospect the entire situation, and wish they can do the complete opposite of what they have done. This feeling I was describing is called: kairos.

  Kairos is seizing the perfect opportunity for rhetoric. Perfect opportunity is usually defined as the right moment to take place. For example, the right moment when trying to persuade your parents to buy you something is when they are off for the weekend and mom takes a sip of her wine. Or when you are yelling at a friend about an argument, and you say the right thing to sway their opinion of the topic. Kairos occurs every day. We wish we can seize every opportunity, but it is feasible. So the main question is: how do we precisely execute the right moment consistently without failing? 

  In my opinion, the only way how to execute kairos at all times is by actually paying attention to close details. If you are being conscientious and fully aware of every single word that is occurring in an argument, debate, or conversation, then, you can easily capitalize and seize the opportunity. Therefore, it is a necessity to actually listen to what the person is saying when you are having a conversation instead of trying to generate a counterargument in return.