We treat every open door as wealth banked — a future kept in reserve, a possibility we can always come back to. An option you never use is not freedom. It is rent.

Name the doors you are holding open. The job you won't leave because a better one might appear. The flat you didn't bid on because next year's launch could be nicer. The message unsent, the project unstarted, the person kept at arm's length in case someone more certain came along. None of these felt like decisions — and that is exactly why they cost so much. A choice you refuse to make still gets made, on schedule, by the clock.

The hallway is comfortable. Good lighting, no risk, every door still yours. You can stand there for a decade telling yourself you are staying flexible. Meanwhile the person who walked through one ordinary door five years ago is now five years into an actual life — not a perfect one, a real one. They gave up their options for a floor to stand on. That turned out to be the trade.

So today, before the week starts: close one door on purpose. Say no to a maybe you have been keeping warm. Put your weight on one thing you have only been hedging.

You lose nothing by choosing — the doors you are mourning are the ones you were never going to walk through.