Locking the Door

Being a college student, I live in a dorm room on campus. I am surrounded by a variety of different ladies who I interact with on an everyday basis. My dorm in particular is set up in a suite style where there are two room and a bathroom conjoining them. I live by myself this semester and therefore have half of the suite to myself. Stay with me here because I promise there is a point to my ramblings. This morning I was in a hurry and when leaving the bathroom I forgot to press in the lock. I don't lock the door because I distrust my suite mates, but more because it is a habit I have picked up because of freshman year prank wars. Now, I've lived in the same exact room for five semesters and I pretty much have locking the door down. Lately however I've noticed that when I walk past it a few minutes later, it's unlocked. I can pretty much attribute this to the fact that even though it's mostly an unconscious act, I get so caught up in whatever else I'm doing in the moment that it just slips by.

Today this moment of realization of the door being unlocked occurred again. I left the bathroom, got dressed, walked by and stared it the door for a few seconds before re-locking it. It got me thinking. How many other areas in my life am I just working on auto-pilot through? How many friends, family members, and class mates are surrounding me that I've forgotten to pay particular attention to under the assumption that I already have? 

It's such a little moment in my day that actually hit pretty hard. I think about all the times where I've read a text without responding or even opened a snapchat and swore to reply later. However what's going on with the person on the other side? Maybe what seems like a small part of my day is so much larger in comparison for them. Perhaps while I'm just going through the motions, there's someone I'm interacting with that I'm doing as good as a job with as I had thought I was. That's pretty upsetting. 

So take the second to slow down and lock the door in your life. For me it's sending the text without reason to or sitting down and writing the letters I never got to. Or even as simply as recognizing the students around me as much as I did freshmen year. 

Lock the door and open opportunities that you wouldn't have if you were running on auto-pilot.