Three friends were led through the door and into the room where they stood before two further, adjacent doors.  The door to the left led to a perfect life, they were told, filled with anything they wanted. The door to the right led back to the life they were already leading: a normal life. One of the friends noticed a third door, behind them, and asked where it led.  The reply was uncertain. Perhaps it led to a life of punishment, where few things, if any, would ever go in their favor. So the three turned around again and considered the two adjacent doors, as the others urged them to quickly and firmly make their decisions.

Without much hesitation, the first friend opened the left door, pausing only to say, “I’ll see you on the other side.”  The door clicked shut behind him. Moments passed. The second friend walked forward with a forced smile and turned the handle on the right door.  “Are you sure?” the last friend asked, pulling on his arm.

“No.  But the longer I stay, the more I will want to go through the other door.” And the second friend passed through the door on the right.  And the second door clicked shut.

Now the third friend pondered.  Reason pointed to the left door.  But doubt and curiosity pulled him right.  Why had his friend chosen that door?

“How,” he began, “do I know that the doors lead to what you promised?” And he thought his question very smart. So they turned on the screens beside the doors, and showed him the lives his friends had chosen.

When he was finished watching, they asked him which door he would choose. “My first friend lived a life of luxury, where anything he wanted or desired was his immediately. So he found no satisfaction, and could earn nothing, achieve nothing.  Even his desires were lost. When he died, he died because he wanted to, and even then, he died before he could do it himself. He left behind nothing of his own.”

And the other friend?

“I watched as he worked hard and achieved many things. He sometimes failed and sometimes succeeded. He learnt from his failures, and was overjoyed at his successes. There were times when he remembered these doors and wondered if he had been a fool. When he died, it was not what he wanted, and he left behind many things, including desires he had never satisfied.”

And?

“I don’t want either of those doors.  I want another choice.”

The third friend stood, turned around, and walked to the third door behind him. “Where is its screen?”

They told him not to ask about the door or wonder about it.  He reached to open it, but it was locked.

“Why?” he asked.

They reminded him, then, that this was the door he had come from.

So he turned around, facing the other two doors, and tried the one on the left, and then the one on the right. They were locked as well.

“Why am I locked in here?” he asked, too late, far too late.  He could see them now, the others. “How long,” he asked, “have I been here?”

They did not answer.  But he didn’t need an answer.  He was like them now, and he knew the answer himself.  He had been here long enough to have watched his friends live out their lives. He realized, too late, that he was now an old man.  The two adjacent doors were shut for him forever.

The door behind him opened, admitting another group of friends, unsure why they were there.

And he urged them to quickly and firmly make their decisions.