We went to the will reading of a favorite aunt and found out that we received a sizable inheritance. Our aunt also loved puzzles and escape rooms, so there was one catch – we had to meet a series of puzzle challenges in an escape room she designed to earn the large sum of money. The lawyer who read the will led us into a room within our aunt’s mansion that had a series of doors with various locks on them. He then told us we had 60 minutes to earn our inheritance and promptly left, locking the door behind him.

We quickly got to work and were very happy with ourselves as we easily opened three doors, finding clues to unlock some of the other doors in the room. However, when we got to a fourth door, we became discouraged as we couldn’t easily understand the clue to unlocking the next lock. Not only was it unclear, but it seemed like quite an involved task. After a few minutes, we decided to work on some of the other doors in the room. We reached a point when we needed to go back to the problematic door and work diligently on solving it to move forward. Interestingly, after we looked much closer and took the time to set aside the frustration, it ended up being reasonably easy to solve. We made it through at least a dozen doors before the lawyer returned and told us that we had indeed earned the inheritance.

As we were thinking about our experience in the adventure, we realized how much it parallels life. So often we embark on projects, goals, relationships, or a myriad of other things, and we identify complex parts – things we really don’t want to do to complete the project, accomplish the goal, work on the relationship, and so on. So while it’s okay to take a break, we must go back to work on the difficult part, and we may be lucky enough to realize that it’s not as difficult as we first imagined it to be. Other times it will still be difficult, sometimes challenging, but once we get through it, we will be a more resilient person.