I started my writing journey as a poet and-so metaphors have been a major part of all my conversations and publications.
In the blog “Room”, I shared a metaphor that our personal space is like a room with our skills and experiences that we use as tools to get things done.
This week I came across this TedTalk on "How to sell without selling your soul" where the speaker shared his story of door-to-door sales and said, "Everyone has doors. If you knock on them, they open." It reminded me of that blog and this tweet that I shared more than an year ago.
It told me that our personal space is more than just a room, right now it might be a room but, you can build around it whatever you want. Maybe now it is just a room but, as you grow you make it I to a 1 BK then a 1 BHK then 2 BHK then 3 BHK, onto a mantion to an entire estate or take it even further, sky is the limit. Maybe you've not walked out of that room to realise what you have in store for others.
The more growth you pursue, the more you can accommodate in terms of skills, experiences, resources and most importantly, people.
Growth is expansive by definition—focused yet expansive. It's unbearably tragic and outright unjust to your potential if you want stagnation.
When I said my room is a laboratory, what I was looking at was the kitchen in this house.
Drawing room is where you interact with guests/strangers and decide if you should restrict them to this space or take them to the living room into the friends zone, or to the kitchen to build stuff with you or if that person is family material.
Living room is where you hang out with friends. They usually have access to both the drawing room and the kitchen.
Kitchen is where you cook—with somone, a team or solo.
Your room is for yourself and your family. Naturally they have access to every room.
The terrace is where you go to get some alone time.
Last month I was talking to a younger brother who is going through a rough phase. He is very picky with who he befriends and it backfired pretty hard. I gave him the analogy of concentric circles where every circle indicates how close that person is to you and how well know you. These concentric circles are a kind of the Ven diagrams that I use, every chance I get, to illustrate how things are intertwined with each other.
That is the beauty of metaphors. They all say the same thing but, every metaphor and analogy gives you a different angle and a deeper understanding.
Coming back to the home analogy. The mistake people make is knocking on the walls and getting frustrated about why the person is not responding or knocking on the window and scaring the people inside. If you end up breaking the wall that's damaging someones property which is a crime and if you get in through the window that's trespassing which is also illegal too.
If you don't put in the necessary effort to look for the right place to knock and waste unnecessary energy on forcing an entrence where it doesn't belong or entering through spaces that are not meant for it, it won't end well for either parties. Searching for the door is the equivalent of understanding the person and if you don't want to look for the door, you don't deserve what's inside. And if you don't let people in you are doing when they deserve it, you are robbing them off where they deserve to be.
What do you look for in people to let them in?
What's your favourite metaphor/analogy?
Let me know 🙃