A man entered a three-story office building, read the directory, and found that his appointment
was on the third floor. He decided to take the elevator. He pushed the button and the door slid
open. To his surprise, there was another door that needed to be opened. It was made of
crisscrossed metal rods that folded open and closed like an accordion. He manually slid the door
open, entered, and pushed button #3.

Having lived most of his life in a big, modern city, he amused himself by thinking this must be one
of the very first elevators in history. This thought helped him pass the time on his very slow ride to
the third floor.

When the elevator stopped, he opened the accordion cage door and waited for the sliding door to
open. Even though this was a very slow elevator, the door didn’t open, so he knew something was
wrong. He looked at the door and observed a handle. “Of course!” he thought. “This ancient
elevator door needs to be opened by hand.”

He grabbed the handle and tried to slide the door open. It didn’t move. He tried again. It didn’t
move. He wiggled the handle back and forth a few times and again tried to slide the door open.
It didn’t move. He was stumped.






Luckily, this door had a small glass window reinforced with crisscrossed metal threads.
Every few moments he tried to slide the door open while he kept his eye on the hallway outside.
Soon, he saw two men passing by. He knocked on the window and got their attention. One of the
men came over, grabbed the handle, pulled the door toward himself, and SWUNG it open!
The door didn’t slide open. It was on hinges and swung open.

Swinging doors don’t work very well when you try to slide them open.
ARE YOU FEELING TRAPPED?
This true story illustrates how one person literally trapped himself with a picture...
HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE TRAP THEMSELVES WITH NOTHING MORE THAN A PICTURE OF THE WAY
THEY THINK THINGS OUGHT TO BE?
Our hero was rather embarrassed. He had literally trapped himself with a
picture. His picture was that elevator doors slid open.

It was a valuable lesson.
One alternative to blaming our circumstances for our problems is to examine our pictures.
Perhaps they are the real source of our troubles.
Perhaps the solution lies in noticing our pictures and letting them go.
He looked for an “open door” button. There was none. He began to feel
concerned. He was trapped. Four or five minutes may not seem like a very
long time in most situations. However, inside an elevator, when you’re feeling
trapped, minutes grow to be long periods of time.