‘Don’t give up. Normally, it is the last key on the ring which opens the door.’ Paulo Coelho
I read this quote and smiled. Its particular wisdom has shown itself to be true in my life over and over. Whether it is keys or any other myriad of ‘forced choice’ options that I am given, I rarely pick the right option first. I have grown used to this in myself, and rather than cursing the fates over my ridiculous ability to choose wrong before I choose right, I have learned to reframe ‘wrong’. If I make a choice that is not correct, there is always some gift in my choice nonetheless.
For example last week, I was searching for a street address in a part of town that was unfamiliar to me. I found the street I needed and had to make a choice to either go east or west. I could see no street numbers to reference which direction my needed location sat in, so I had to choose which way to go blindly. As is typical, I chose wrong. But before I could make a U-turn to right myself, a small building caught my eye. In its window sat a sign that had a laundry list of services that were offered within. One of these services was ‘notary public.’ Ah!!! Sitting in my glove box was a lease agreement that had been in need of being notarized. I had gone to my usual notary locale the week before only to find that the service was no longer offered. I had not yet taken the time to search out an alternative, but it was high on my list of things to do. I quickly pulled into the parking lot and within 2minutes I had my document notarized and was able to leave that parking lot traveling the direction I needed to be going.
What had seemed like a wrong turn was just a right turn that got sprung on me.
Don’t give up. Making our way through a few different keys before finding the one we are looking for is not always about choosing wrong…sometimes it is about making room for a right that we cannot yet see.