Good Morning World 🌎 I woke up with strength on my mind.  These are my musings before I pick up a paintbrush to paint. And for no particular reason I’m going to share it here, with you. Later on, I’m going to come back and revisit my musings. I’m going to post- check my post, and read whatever enlightening responses have been left.  Hopefully someone will join the conversation and that’ll be interesting for sure.

We all are “Doers”.  The ability to be a “Doer” has layers, some people are very quick at getting a thing done, while others are slow & steady. 

I’m reminded of repairing doorknobs.  We make an initial observation, an overall assessment of what’s wrong with it and think why does it get stuck? Are we turning it wrong?  Or is the problem with the hardware?  We think that maybe tightening a screw might help.  We quickly grab the right tools, a Phillips head screwdriver fits, we tighten the loose screw and for good measure, we tighten all the other screws as well, then we tell ourselves “There, that fixed  it!” 

But maybe It’s a temporary repair, a quick adjustment that seems “Good Enough”,  but one that can never hold up under the comings and goings that a doorknob is meant to endure.  Sometimes a quick repair isn’t good enough, it’s not sustainable and it isn’t guaranteed to work, because maybe it wasn’t just a screw that came loose.   Maybe it’s the material that the screw was driven into.  Perhaps, over time the hole has widened and no matter how much we turn the screwdriver that screw, in that hole isn’t going to bite into the wood anymore.  But when we quickly put all of our will & might into the last turns, the screw gets a meager hold and we think that it’ll work, that our repair will be efficient, because in that moment, when we tested the doorknob it held, it turned and the door could be opened.  

If we leave straight away, without continuously turning the doorknob, without wiggling and without roughly testing it, we can convince ourselves, that it’s been fixed and we can walk away thinking that we’ve done a good job.  

But there’s a better way to go about life, it’s not so quick and requires a more diligent approach.  This then is the other kind of doer, the one who’s efficiency begins with analyzing & understanding how the doorknob was suppose to work.  When we look at the hardware and also take a moment to assess the condition of material that the doorknob is mounted on.  

When we start to look hard at the cracks, for wood rot, or other imperfections that may not have existed when the door was hung.  When we go deeper and look for what might’ve caused the failure, was it a small water leak or the remnants of a flood?  Was it insect damage, is there a nearby termite tunnel?  We look hard to see what might not be immediately visible. Trying to determine what caused the failure becomes an important part, as to how we can fix it. 

So we want to understand how the installer put the doorknob on, was it skillfully done or haphazard? Did she cross-thread the screws, or are these even the right screws for the job? Sheet metal screws might fit through the mounting base of the doorknob, but sheet metal screws aren’t meant for wood, the name gives us clues to their proper use.  

As we continue to inspect the doorknob, physically wiggling, at first carefully and then more violently, we begin to understand where the weak point is, we step back & we can see, how the doorknob was suppose to be installed.  Now, we become the slower, more efficient “Doer”, we spend time in the preparation of the repair, as we intend to create a lasting bond, a more permanent repair.  Intentions are clear, hardware that might’ve failed replaced, the door itself is checked for balance and tightness of its hinges, all the working parts are artfully, purposefully and skillfully addressed.  The doorknob is repaired for long term use, available at a moment’s notice for when opportunity might soon appear.  So that doorknob’s door hinges need to stay lubricated because opening the door, by turning the knob hinges on al the parts remaining in good working order.

Life’s like that, the working parts of a doorknob & opportunity waiting on the other side.  

#OpportunityKnocking