-Should You Open The Door? (Knock on This)

There are times in life when we are placed in front of doors. When we over sleep and then are faced with the closed door of our classroom. When we are summoned to the back of the store and nervously wait outside the manager’s door. When we go to pick up a date for the first time, and nervously wait after knocking on the door. After coming back from the grocery store weighed down with more bags then we thought we had money to afford, and can’t even see the doorknob due to the bags. Waiting for the driver to unlock the passenger side door. Standing outside the door of the cleaners before it opens to insure we get our clothes back. Sometimes it’s a matter of whether or not we can reach the doorknob. It might just be that you are carrying three bags full of Ramen, two bags full of EasyMac and another bag containing a month’s supply of Kool-Aid Jammers. Other times it’s a matter of not being the one to open the door. Sometimes it needs to be unlocked for us or opened up for us. Trust me when I say that the people who work at the cleaners will not find it funny when you try to unlock the doors yourself. And the police definitely do not find it funny either. Despite locks and deadbolts and the possibility of alarms going off, what keeps us from opening the door? Sometimes nothing is in our way; it’s just us and the door, but we can’t seem to turn the knob.
Wouldn’t it be great if life was just like a game show? Not the game shows of today where people eat the brains of otters or have to slap their own mother just to stay on the island and have the chance of winning the suitcase that will grant them immunity. I’m talking about the old game shows, the ones that set the standard. A standard that I doubt will ever be met again. Just imagine being faced with some huge situation. Really hard for a twentysomething in college to imagine, I know, but think really hard. Big, huge decision in front of you and then three mystery doors are placed in front of you. Each door is an option for the problem at hand, but you don’t know which one is the best. So now it’s about luck and strategy. But even if you picked the wrong door you still get a consolation prize. Maybe not as nice as the five day four night stay on St. Tropez island, but a year supply of packaged meat is also tasty. That is a lot of cookouts and barbeques. And who’s to say that the cookouts wouldn’t end up being better then the island. The island might have angry locals, or bad weather or rebellious crocodiles. Or bird flu. Maybe the consolation prize is actually the better one. But we are never able to know because we never get to open both doors. One and done, hope for the best.
To own up to the truth we would have to admit that most of the doors we end up in front of we either slowly move towards or run to; but there are times in life when the door is placed right in front of us. Almost landing on top of us or knocking us over. Then what do we do? It would be awesome to just kick it in like John McClane or Sydney Bristow, but there is something to be said about taking things slow. Maybe we should approach the doors like the people on CSI, with tiny little flashlights and oversized Q-Tips. There should be a way to have a bouncer standing outside the door of your life; some big ex-thug named Skull or Bloodknuckle. Then he could decide who gets to come into your life, sort of like a filter to your social circle. But ex-thugs cost money and want a lot of time off, so that leaves us by ourselves, just us and our doors. It would be pointless to live in fear of what could be behind the door, and a lot of time would be wasted debating whether or not to open it. So let’s just do it, let’s open it. Break the door down, kick the door in and bust right through it. Grand prize, constellation prize, no prize; the point is that we would be moving forward. Forward motion is very good in life, so don’t knock it until you try it.