The Door Was Always Open

We're told that when one door closes another opens. I don't think that's the case. I think you enter through one day and the way out is through until you die. This house you're born into is the home you carry with you until the day you die. You can keep opening the door over and over to try and find your new way. But until you change your mindset you are not going to change. Although let's say you can move out of your house, and you want to find another house. Let's face it, do you REALLY want to go back out the door that got you into the problem in the first place? As I see it, if you do walk through that door, you're going to be back at where you started. Opening the same door, looking for the same solutions, looking at the same problems. In all cases of change, it's not closing the door that's the problem, it's locking it, it's boarding it up, or maybe it's removing the door altogether so that you can let people into your life who want to help. You can't just lock it Friday night and expect that things will have changed by Monday.

The door you wanted open was always open, and chances are it was inside the space you were in already. You just needed to see it as open. How many doors do you have in your residence? In your life? In your surroundings? I dare you to count all the doors you go through in any given "normal" day. What if each of those doors was the door for change?

I tried for years to quit alcohol, caffeine, excess sugar (whilst I fell back in the trap of excess sugar in a time of extreme life changes, I've since removed it again). Back 10 or so years ago I used to work out daily, I got myself up to 7 miles a day running and I was topping out at 8-9 mph. I worked out 5 times or more a week, all for 2-3 hour workouts. And you know what it worked. It got me down to the lowest weight I had been in 10 years. I had little body fat, I looked good, I felt good. But I had no other goals in life. I was filling my time with things that made time just go by. After my workouts I'd sit in the gym and look around at the people and wonder what they were thinking about as they pushed themselves. Why were they doing it? Why were they there? Were they going through similar things?

And then, I got hurt. I had to limp home. I had injured my knee so badly it swelled to double the size that night.

And it all came crashing down. I started taking 6 Advil a day because I wouldn't go to the doctor, no, my pride was too much. I toughed it out. I made myself suffer needlessly because I was too prideful. I slowly started gaining weight again. I bludgeoned myself constantly. I started drinking obnoxious amounts under the guise "I can quit any time." and my least favorite "I need it." I hit my heaviest weight at 230, my pants weren't fitting, my wallet was thin as a sheet of paper. God damn, how disgusting a thought that I even let myself get that bad. Right, anyways, moving on. It took me 15 years to kick the bad habits. And instead of just talking to someone about it, I believed the lies I told myself. I was a self-loathing, angry, upset person inside but on the outside I could be a really nice person. I could be anyone's friend. Unless you really knew me. There were a few people who really knew me, but not many. I had my walls up because I didn't want people in.

Life is a vanity project for a lot of people. And I don't say that to mean mine is any different. We all have a desire to want to be remembered for the good, well most of us at least. No one wants to remember the bad. No one wants to be associated with failure. Yet as Emil Cioran had stated "Written into every failure is a formula." I woke up one day and said "enough's enough." I had hit rock bottom. I had hit the lowest point that I wanted to go.

Distinctly discovering oneself, dividing the decisions into subsequent smaller decisions is where you have to be in order to make a change matter. Where you have to be to make a change stick.

You will fail, and that's ok. If you know you failed, accept it and find your path to get back on. Another idea from Emil Cioran, "You always commit suicide too late. Wait another day. See what happens tomorrow. There's always tomorrow." There IS ALWAYS tomorrow. Until your time is through on this earth, remember what Annie said "The sun'll come out tomorrow." Take this proverbial saying as a sign that the door was always open. You are in control of your own life. Take a moment to thank those who give you gifts wrapped in sandpaper. Without them you wouldn't be where you are. You wouldn't be the amazing person you are. You wouldn't have broken down the wall, queue Pink Floyd "Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!"

Embrace the suck because, if you only do it once in your life it could be the life changing moment you were looking for.

Here's a larger image from the image above.