Sometimes paths are blocked because they’re not for you.  You want your life to be a certain way.  On your job, you’re not promoted or paid as you believe you deserve to be.  Opportunities are not afforded you. There is constant tension.  You pursue an objective for many years and it doesn’t manifest.  You have specific intentions.  You do every single thing that you can think of to achieve a goal and don’t understand why it’s not attainable.

Maybe all of the doors that you’re knocking on are not meant for you.  One door is wide open; but, you think, “I don’t want that door.  That’s not in my plan.  I didn’t envision that for myself.”

However, if this is the only door that is open, your choices are to stay where you are or to walk through that door.  Personally, I’d rather see what’s on the other side than to keep doing what I’ve always done and to stay where I’ve always been, especially if I feel that my potential has been limited.

For me, it’s about trusting and having faith that, if this is the only door that is open, then this must be for me.  I must have the courage to step through that door and into uncertainty.

Many times we want things that are not for us.  The things that I put my highest effort towards were tangible things.  I wanted a job that gave me a certain amount of money.  When I switched to wanting intangible things, my life started changing very fast.  Opportunities opened that I would never have considered, but decided to accept even though I didn’t know why they were being made available to me.  I decided to just flow and say, “Wow! This is interesting.  Let me go with this.”

Going through that door has not yet given me the money that I want or need.  Nevertheless, I have received intangible experiences that matched my revised intentions: being around fluid, open, and friendly people; people who appreciate me and acknowledge my skills and potential.  When I chased money, I was rarely validated or affirmed.  I suppose I was around other people who were also primarily pursuing money and not really happy.  They expressed their unhappiness.  Being also unhappy, I was a receptive vessel.

When you are going in a direction that is right for you, how do you know?  I think you know because there is no effort.  People you don’t know help you even though there is no reason why they should.  Things happen very fast.  One day, I was applying for a substitute position.  The next thing I knew, I had a permanent teaching position, even though I have no credential.  The process was so fast, I don’t even remember it.

Many stated to me, “You should get your credential.  You should go into this field.”  I thought, “You don’t even know me.  How can you say that?  I have zero experience.”  I received very strong and detailed recommendation letters.  Throughout my years of law practice, I can count on one hand those who enthusiastically endorsed me even though I worked long hours, did excellent work, and had successful results.  I worked hard because I always felt that I had to prove myself.  I had to work twice as hard to get half as far.

For years, I was unhappy, unsupported, and invalidated.  For the last six months, I have been constantly affirmed and praised.  To be honest, it has been unbelievable and incredible.  Everything is flowing to me.  That’s how I knew that I should go through that door, even as I felt a great deal of apprehension.  How am I going to pay for the required credential program?  How am I going to live off of this tiny salary?  What about what I said I wanted to do with my life?  Am I truly capable of doing this?

In the movie The Matrix, a little girl stated: “Do not try and bend the spoon.  That is impossible.  Instead, only try to realize the truth.  The truth is that there is no spoon.  Then you will see that it’s not the spoon that bends.  It is only yourself.”

I think that my life started to change when I realized that I was trying to bend the spoon.  I knew intellectually that I was to bend myself.  I didn’t do it.  I couldn’t do it.  I wouldn’t do it.  Finally, after repeatedly being blocked from everything that I thought I wanted or needed, I decided to work on bending myself.  It didn’t happen immediately.  It has taken years of trying.  The more I thought I grew, the more doors I found shut.  That was very discomforting and upsetting.  Ultimately, I kept trying, no matter what, to change myself.  Finally, this one door opened.

I believe that I’m on a right path.  This is not to say that I know everything.  I’ve simply graduated from a particular grade.

Like with swimming, I’ve moved up a lane.