I have been thinking about doors recently. What got me thinking about doors was a post a couple posts back about education. There was a comment about how college education can open doors and my mind wandered from there.

As I got thinking about it, I envisioned life being a series of doors. When we are young we have a vast array of doors before us to choose from. College, trade school, no school, online education, on the job training, no training, work, military service, etc. There are so many doors, so many possibilities. 

But each time we enter a door, we start narrowing our access to other doors, while at the same time opening access to other kinds of doors that we never had access to before. If we go to college, we move beyond our access to trade school, no school, and so on. But we also open a door to other doors we never could have accessed before, through degrees earned in college. Likewise, trade school may move us beyond the college door, but will open up other doors and possibilities.

The cool thing with life though, is that many of the doors that were before us in our youth never actually really disappear. I may not have gone to college in my early 20’s, but I still have access to college and obtaining a degree until I die. Likewise, I may earn a college degree but then decide I don’t like what I got a degree in and may opt for trade school, alternative online education, or some other kind of training more suited to my interests.

When my parents grew up it seems like people picked something to do in life and stuck with it the rest of their lives, but that doesn’t seem to be the way life works anymore. 

There are a lot of younger people who seem paralyzed in indecision because they don’t want to spend money on something they’re not going to use, or what if they don’t like it, or what if … whatever. I think something to keep in mind is the ability to adjust and change as we go along. We are never too old to change.

This world is full of so many good possibilities, we can never experience everything. But if we don’t choose something, then we will never experience anything at all, we will never learn, grow, or progress. Education can be expensive, but in the long run, however you get educated, that time and money has not been wasted. Life is an adventure to be lived, in many different ways, so pick a door, any door, and if you don’t like it, pick a different, just don’t stand there and do nothing.