Which Door

When we’re faced with a choice, it sometimes feels like we’re standing facing two or more doors, and thinking hard about which one to go through. We know that once we enter one of the doors, we can’t come back out and have a do-over without serious consequences.

These types of decisions prompt us to think about the future. What will happen when we make a choice? How will it affect our livelihood, our families, our moods, and our wallets?

In these situations, it helps to remember that this isn’t the first time we’ve been here — in fact, we’ve chosen to enter many doors over the course of our life. So the act of picking is not the intellectual work; the work comes from remembering the last doorway we walked through.

I was in the garage of an office recently, and was a bit nervous that I’d forget where my car was. As I walked into the elevator bank to go upstairs, I noticed this sign:

There were other doors to come through as well, with different images (a plane, a car, a boat, etc).

In this case, I was able to remember exactly which door I came through, not by a number or color, but an actual image, and one that encourages and embodies forward motion.

So now I ask myself: what doorway did I walk through recently that encouraged and embodies forward motion? Which doors kept me stagnant?

You can’t know where you’re going until you understand where you’ve been, true. But you can’t know where you’ve been if you don’t remember which doorway you walked through.