Woefully sighing over closed doors

Oct 5th, 2008 | By Barbara | Category: Coaching, Insights

Closed Doors

Morning!

Oh wow, was yesterday ever so much fun! I had the pleasure of attending our karate dojo’s demostration and presentation for our local Community Day! As the unofficial photographer of my dojo, I took bleeploads of pictures and a great many of them turned out magnificent. I always enjoy printing them out on 8.5×11" paper and handing them to the parents; my photography skills are improving greatly.

But I digress!

Check out this superDeDuper quote that arrived in my inbox from Crow’s Daily Dose:

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

Alexander Graham Bell

I have my own take on this….but let’s see what Crow has to say, eh?

….So many people would benefit from really taking this observation to heart. We tend to get very attached to what we’ve decided we want and this fixation tends to make us discount all the other possibilities around us. Car salesmen know this very, very well. If they see by the gleam in your eye and the enthusiasm in your voice that you’ve fixated on the bright red convertible on the showroom floor they know that their work is already half done. The more you want it the more you’ll fight to get it and the worse the alternatives will appear.

This is in spite of the fact that earlier on, before you’d really decided that that particular car was destined to be yours, it was just one of several possibilities.

A similar thing happens when we’re trying to pick our college or our major field of study. For a variety of reasons we choose one as our first pick and if it doesn’t come through – disaster. A major disappointment. And yet, after four years at the "other" institution, or in the "second best" major, it turns out that this particular school was a great place to be and the major you’re in holds fascinations you hadn’t expected to find. In fact, when you stop to think about it, it seems that the alternate path you were forced to take turned out to be the right one.

Basically, the human mind is highly adaptable and this is one of the reasons for the success of our species. In essence, we grow to like where we are no matter where that may be (within limits, of course). And since we also tend to have a touching fondness for ourselves, for who we are personally, it makes sense that we approve of the path that got us to the current point. If we’d gone to that "other" school we’d never have met our current friends, wouldn’t have had the particular experiences we did and wouldn’t now be quite the same person.

So be easier on yourself and on your psyche in the future and stay positive even when you don’t get exactly what you’d hoped for. And definitely stay away from the red convertible – they’re cop magnets

That was the Daily Dose from Saturday, and the one I received today was just as nifty! I highly recommend you sign up for it yourself – it’s a superb way to start the day.

And now, for my take…

Honestly, I truly believe everything happens for a reason.

Whenever you encounter challenges that would fry off the fur of a luxurious lion in frantic fear…it’s because your guardian angel has decided you have something you NEED to learn…and previous kind methods of knocking at your consciousness just didn’t do the trick.

You might not know now….nor in a month from now, nor in a year, nor in a decade or 23 years down the road….but sometime in the future, you’ll be able to connect the dots from a soul-searing emotional event to the maturity and inner-spirit growth you’ve enjoy today.

I have my own slew of connecting-the-dots, including:

If I hadn’t been born handicapped (minus 1/2" bone in my fibula), I wouldn’t have had to do swimming for therapy in my late 20s…and wouldn’t have carpooled with my not-then-husband and gotten to know him better.

If I didn’t have my heart done ripped out and stomped on in my earlier 20s, I wouldn’t have learned that you can love someone as a friend and witness each other’s journey thru life…without it impacting your primary relationship with your soul mate. In other words, you can have soul-friends who enhance your life as well.

If I didn’t start karate, I wouldn’t have learned the true depth of my inner strength when it comes to wanting to give up….yet being able to find the power to fight on….and I wouldn’t be able to pass this one to my kids.

If I didn’t go into a friendship 10 years ago with my eyes open….I would have felt completely taken for granted for all that I did and angsted about it. But because I gave freely WITHOUT expectation, I was able to feel like I honored my own creed and lived up to my own expectations…and help out my friends to this day the same way.

Sure, it’s easy to say, Barbara, the above is all coincidence, and true, it might be and probably is.

However, I choose to view it as my own connect-the-dots and this-is-why-painful-things-happen reasons. It comforts me (and actually is part of my own personal inner spiritual beliefs; you could say it’s a profound component of my own personal religion).

Thus, I try NOT to woefully sigh over doors that are closed…such actions blind me to the potential of other challenges and new directions. Angsting over what may have been is a fruitless exercise (although I do believe in giving yourself time to honor whatever grief might have resulted)….turning on a dime is what it’s really all about.

And that’s me thoughts for this fine Sunday morning,

Barbara Ling


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Woefully sighing over closed doors

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