A couple that I work with have a son that stole the hearts of all of our coworkers pretty much the moment he was born.

The second he learned how to walk, he was popping in and around our desks, making our communal office space his own personal discovery zone. Some days he’d want to sit on your lap, other days he just wanted to check in on what you were doing.  He was always moving, always learning.

Once he started talking, the possibilities became endless. Now he had ways to ask for things with more than just a point of a finger. Life was much more interesting, people much more fun.

“Can I go upstairs with you?”

“Can I go outside with you?”

“Can I go into the other office with you?”

He still had that curiosity and now he had the means of satisfying it. Well, at least when the answer to those questions was “yes.”

“Sure, you can come with me, hold on, let me open the door for you.”

As the months went on with him walking and talking, so grew his sense of independence.

“Can I go outside with you?”

“Sure, let me open the door for you.”

“No! I can do it!”

We understood his desire to do things on his own, to grow up, to be “big”, so we let him open the door on his own, if only slightly leaning against it for some undetectable assistance.

These days he doesn’t even wait for your offer, once he gets the cue of approval, he’s pushing that door open like treasure is waiting behind it.

As he grows up, I’m sure the time will come when he finds himself holding a door open for someone else, as we all do from time to time. And when things get tough, he’ll be that little kid again, hoping someone will be there to open a door for him once more.

It’s a never ending cycle really. Throughout the course of a day, doors will open and close, both literally and figuratively, and we never know which side of which door we’ll find ourselves on. In a perfect world we’d always find that doorknob unlocked or that neighbor holding the door open, but in reality, doors are often locked or hidden or even shut in our face. Some days we’ll find ourselves knocking and knocking, sure we’re at the right place, when the fact is we just need to find a new door on a new day. And sometimes, no matter how many keys we try or tricks we pull, all we need to open a door is to accept and trust the little assistance from that someone saying, “hold on, let me help.”