When God Closes One Door

This morning, like on any other weekday, I swiped my identity card at the basement door and entered the elevator lobby of the office. Now, this place has six elevators, three on one side and once you press the common button to call one of them, you can never be sure which one will come first. It is a good game if you have some time to kill - guessing which one you'll be taking.

But if you are in a hurry, the same game can become frustrating. More often than not, the group of people waiting will make an intelligent guess based on whic elevator is closest to your floor and start hustling towards that one hoping to get in quicker. And more often than not, a silent player in the game, another elevator that has been constantly descending from another floor will reach your floor behind your back and the light by the button you had pressed will go off. You are still staring at the elevator stuck one floor above and before you know it you are hurriedly checking the other 5 elevators out to see which one has arrived. Sometimes even as you walk towards that one, you stare back at the one you had hoped would come down and nod your head in exasperation. You seldom win…

I had an epiphany around this situation a few days ago and I have started seeing the elevator lobby as some kind of Bodhi tree after that (or at least a place where one existed and was cut off to make space for this boon to mankind called a Software Company). I have also started seeing life a little differently…

We have all heard the cliched proverb - "When God closes one door He opens another". I once read an eye-opening extension of that one - "When God closes one door He opens another; but we stare at the closed door for so long that we miss seeing the open door"! The elevator situation and life in general reminds me of that...

We all have this vision of our lives and more often than not that vision is of a 'happily ever after'. This vision encompasses certain things and people that we think we want to own or be with and will make us happy. And we spend a considerable part of our time pursuing these things and people - admission into that college, a job with xyz portfolio, a paycheck with 6 digits, that too-good-to-be-true-person you dated in the second year and never got over etc.

But as the road ahead unfolds, life doesn't go as we had envisioned it for ourselves. We don't get the things we wanted. The people we loved start walking away from us. And a shadow of doubt is cast over our 'happily ever after'.

So we kick and crib. We cry. We ask, "Why?" (worse, "Why Me?"). We refuse to face the facts and keep hoping that things will magically turn around one day for our 'happily ever after'. We never come out of what has been.

In the process, we miss seeing the things that have been sent our way to make our lives better though they aren't exactly what we wanted. We do not acknowledge the people whom we didn't love but who are waiting for a chance to make us happier than ever in their own special ways. We look at the ones walking away for so long that we miss seeing the one who has been walking along all the while. We miss the chance to hold their hand and walk together forever just because we are busy wallowing in self-pity about how we never got what we wanted.

Maybe what we wanted was not the best for us. Maybe we deserved much more than what we wanted. Maybe we should learn to let go.

Because when God closes one door, He opens another. Maybe we should not close our eyes in prayer for so long and learn to keep them open to look at that door...