The Same Door

I am standing alone. Except for the shadows, the room is empty: Dark and sinister, they billow around me like heavy curtains in a silent wind. I am lost, the emptiness both within and without. But I cling to hope.

My hope is a doorway which stands before me, the only escape from this place of dark depression. The way out glows brilliantly and is utterly enticing, offering me everything I need and desire. But even as I rejoice in its promise, the door is closing in my face.
I stand bewildered as my hope dies. The door closes remorselessly until the magical light beyond is no more than a sliver. For a moment the light still shines – but then it is taken from me and I stand in complete darkness.
But in some part of me a small fact registers: there was no click as the door shut, no sound at all. I feel abandoned. But there has been no material confirmation of finality. I cling to hope … yet I can see nothing and what else can I trust but my own eyes? The light of hope is quite gone.
Or not? Have I misunderstood?
Because although the door has shut in my face, a crack as slim as an echo is once more shimmering with that same wonderful light. Only the barest suggestion, but I see it.
And the light grows and I realise that the door is swinging right through; it is opening onto
the other side now and the way through is widening.
Of course, it’s a swing door! It never actually shuts at all! Or should I say that even as it was closing, it was also opening again. What I thought was the end of the light was the swing from one room to
another. Not the end at all but a beginning. Now opening wider still, it promises so much. Soon I will be able to walk through, out of the dark and into that light.
Taking my first step towards this new disclosure, I hear a voice in my head say, very distinctly, IT IS THE SAME DOOR.
And now I know that there is nothing that closes forever. Success and failure are the same door. The same thing. It depends which side of the door you are looking from.
We authors are so vulnerable to the self-perception of failure. We are not helped by the inevitability of our careers involving a good deal of solitude. Alone and concentrated on our imaginations, we can fall too easily into believing in our own defeat. And not only authors. Our society is fixated on achievement – winners or losers – whether in wealth or simple satisfaction. And, in despair, who remembers that failure is the necessary first step towards success? There are few more essential building blocks for happiness and success than those initial experiences of failure.
And it’s no use trying to squeeze past while the door is closing on you. You’d simply be squashed and achieve nothing. You have to wait until the door has swung right through and is opening once more, just for you. Timing is everything. While the door is shutting, don’t despair. Don’t collapse in a puddle amongst those dank dark shadows, feeling miserably sorry for yourself.
Just remember, IT’S THE SAME DOOR.
And it is your precious self standing in front of it. Rather than valuing ourselves on some external scale of success, judged through the eyes of others, we would better value ourselves for the truth of our own inner self.
You are the only person in the world who can represent your true self. Nobody else brings to the world exactly what you do; you are unique and therefore precious just as you are – this is your value. Once – in spite of inevitable failures – we recognise our own intrinsic value and love it for what it is, then the door can swing through and open into that brighter future.
Because, whether that brightness is yet visible or not, IT’S THE SAME DOOR.
That initial sense of failure is a transitory affair – the door CAN’T open onto the other side until it has first closed in our face.
The door that closes in your face and the door that opens to opportunity – are – quite simply – the same door.