Meek Little Spider

At my office job, there is a door that you use to walk into the building. It has a knob. During the hours of 8:00 - 5:00, that door knob is always unlocked.

However.

1 out of 15 people (on average, I've been in this building for a year) who try to open that door cannot seem to figure out how to turn the door knob in such a way that it opens the door.

The problem is that the knob has a very small hitch. You can sense it when you are turning the knob, there is a slight stickiness to it. But, if you keep turning, even when you sense the small hesitation of the knob, you find that it continues to turn and that you did not break it.

Most people plow right through it. However, the 1 in 15...they just can't seem to bring themselves to try just a little harder.

It drives me bananas. There is little I loathe more in life than encountering a person who is an adult and is still afraid to exist in the world as a physical and autonomous entity. Never is it a male who is afraid to turn that door knob. Every time the would be enterer is stumped, it turns out she is female. Every time, she has been between the ages of 18 - 30.

Every time one of these girls can't figure out how to turn a door knob in order to open a door, I step outside onto the broad porch of my office, and instruct her to "keep turning the knob, the door is unlocked".

Every time, I want to place my hands on her shoulders, fix her gaze on mine, and gently remind her:

1 - Stop being so willfully invisible.
2 - Do not allow that man to wish you into silence were it that you would not laugh so loud in public when you are eating dinner.
3 - If some unsolicited injustice falls upon your path, do not swallow your rage, nor should you ever submerge your despair at the misfortune of others.

For the love of Christ, please just stop being so afraid to fail.

These are also things I tell myself on a daily basis. Because if there is anything that is true to the core about me, it is that I am afraid to exist in the world as a physical and autonomous entity. And I know that is just total bullshit, and I keep hoping I can change.