Doors

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

Walt Disney

I heard a funny story the other day about doors. It was about a friend of mine, who was in a hurry and had gone to the wrong airport to catch his flight - when he was there at the check-in counter, he was told that he had to go to another airport, which was 20 minutes away. He then rushed with his girlfriend to go outside to catch a cab. This particular airport had automatic doors that open when you step in front of the sensor, but unfortunately for my friend, these doors take a while to open and if you run towards it, well, you know the rest. Anyway, my friend ran towards this door, expecting it to open wide for him and he ran smack into it - and there was a loud BUMP! His girlfriend, who was already waiting outside, saw (and heard) this happen.

My poor friend, who probably felt more mortified than hurt, just shrugged and pointed to another exit - as if this never really happened. His girlfriend was bent over double with laughter because he looked hilarious as he pretended that walking into a glass door was no big deal. Last night when I spoke to him, he showed me his forehead, which still had a bump on it. And the incident happened about 10 days ago - which meant that he was actually physically hurt, but he was numb to the pain when it happened because his feeling of embarrassment trumped pain.

My point is that these things happen to all of us - no, not walking into doors, but to have one feeling overpowering another. This tells me that our minds can do anything, even numb the pain that we are supposed to feel at the moment, because something else is more important. It also means that when we're hurt because someone has said or done something awful to us, we can channel our thoughts into feeling something else - in order to 'numb' the pain, albeit physical or mental.

I've learned something from this story. That we can control our emotions and 'choose' to feel whatever we want to feel. So if you're going through a tough time at the moment, let this empower you:

"You are in full control of your feelings. You have a choice. Choose to be happy and positive."

Finally, to my friend D, here's a quote for you:

"When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through."
Jesse Jackson