Are you opened or closed?

Do you have an open approach to life where you welcome people and experiences to your life or do you close off and stay in your safe zone, fearful of change?

I find if I look honestly at my life I'd have to say I'm a combination of both. I've closed the door on some and have to figure out a way, if there is one, to open those doors. It is though sometimes there is a huge hurdle keeping the door closed and regardless of how I push to open it the door slams in my face. I will get to the point that it hurts too much so I'll stop pushing.

I've always tried to look at life as an adventure, although I'm not that adventurous in nature. I'm not one to have a lot of 'friends', but I have a lot of friends. By that I mean I know a lot of people and can call them friends, but really they would be acquaintances. Can you really ever share your life with too many people? If you bring one person in or are brought in to another's life, is that not just one more person to learn from, laugh with, and possibly build a future? I don't mean a future the sense of a future of togetherness so much, but more a history with another person. Is it not that everyday you're touched by the friendship and love of another you're better for it?

Looking at life from the closed approach, for me is just so very sad. I know people are different and need different things out of life and in saying so, I could understand a person's need for private individual time. What I struggle with is the constant desire to be alone rather than take a risk and possibly experience something new or different than what you know. Is introverted different from loner? Is loner different from being alone? That I know, most definitely!

My life and thoughts are such a struggle at times. I do what I can to find balance and realize that life is not easy and the older I get the more struggles I'm facing. My life isn't turning out quite the way I expected, but I know in my deepest, sweetest and most private thoughts I'm right where I want to be right now. I wouldn't change a day of my history if I would end up somewhere other than where I am at this very moment. Regardless of where my future takes me, be it good times, struggles, love and loss I will take every day with the open approach I've come to embrace and travel the adventurous road that has become my life. Closing off is a risk I'm not willing to take and will never settle for anything less than following my heart and dreams. Closing off is a loss of life and a lesson some may never learn because of being closed off in the first place.