"Every Delay for Good": What's the difference between delay and missing out?

A personal column in Srugim discusses the difference between missing a bus and missing an opportunity, and suggests treating waiting time as a gift, while recounting a story about a king's son who missed the opportunity to ask his father for forgiveness.

The columnist describes a common scenario in which a passenger misses a bus and must wait for the next train or bus, sometimes up to half an hour. According to him, the waiting time that results from this is not necessarily a bad thing, and can be used for tasks such as deleting emails, preparing a to-do list, planning a presentation or simply listening to music.

Later in the column the writer recounts a memory from his time studying at a high school yeshiva in Jerusalem, when in ninth grade he used to cry at the beginning of the year due to being away from home and the weight of studies. He describes how the educational staff used to tell a story about a king's son whom his father had expelled from his presence, and only once a year did he open the door of his palace, but the son was negligent and did not come to visit him, and when he repented and ran to climb the stairs he found the door closed. The writer concludes that following the story he decided not to miss the opportunity to ask for forgiveness during the Ten Days of Repentance, and ends the column with the wish "Gmar Chetima Tova."