Nobody senses you outside their home, quivering in the evening air. If someone were to see you hovering outside, it’s unlikely they’d deign to ask if you’d like to come inside. Perhaps there is no one out there closing doors and opening windows. No magical force that is feeding you through rooms like a lab rat and pulling the levers to lead you along. Perhaps you have to knock. 

Who can imagine the bounties that life will offer you behind the closed doors you gaze at awaiting invitation? You might, if you’d only ring the bell. Would someone invite you inside, shelter you like one of their own and change everything for you? They might! If you announced your presence. 

Every moment that we hesitate, hoping that someone will come out to greet us or a voice from the beyond will tell us where to go, the fruits of our lives rot behind closed doors. If you never ask perhaps you shall not receive. You won’t even know there was anything for the taking. You’ll come to believe that it would never have been offered anyway. 

Life unfolds like a delicate, finicky flower when it is met with the right conditions. A little bit of dedication here, a sprinkling of tenacity there, an abundance of patience and a dash of good will and each petal will unfurl to reveal its sweet pollen; the point of this whole thing. 

The ball may roll every which way and it may be subject to many uncountable and unpredictable forces but it would never move if you didn’t blow on it. Maybe God is closing doors and opening windows. Or maybe you are waiting for an elevator you never called.