Brick Walls and Elevator Doors
“Brick walls are there for a reason: They let us prove how badly we want things.” - Professor Randy Pausch from his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University in 2007.
This is one of my favorite quotes and I was reminded of it today when I heard a story on the radio.
The story was as follows:
A man goes into the city to speech at a convention hall in a high rise building. The man gets into an elevator to go to the 9th floor where he will be giving his speech. He enters and pushes the button for the 9th floor.
The elevator starts moving, it arrives at the 9th floor…The elevator door does not open.. the elevator again starts moving up and stops at the 14th floor.. still the door does not open, so the man starts pushing buttons frantically trying to make the door open…
The elevator then starts going down and stops at the 12th floor.. Now the man is concerned.. He starts banging on the door and yells “someone call the front desk, the elevator doors aren’t opening!”..
A voice behind him suddenly says, “the elevator doors are working.. “. The man spins around to see seven people staring at him in a somewhat worried manner..
This elevator had two doors and he had been facing the wrong direction the entire time..
When you encounter a brick wall or a closed elevator door be persistent but be smart. Take a minute to look around, you may be surprised to find that there are other doors opening around you.
