The Four Doors is Evans’s message to those who seek inspiration in their lives. It began as a talk he gave on the spur of the moment, and over the course of ten years, it has evolved into a message he has shared with successful business people, students, and even addicts and prisoners. It includes stories his readers have told him, stories about great achievers who overcame hardships, and stories about his own struggle growing up in a large family with financial difficulties and a suicidal mother, and about his diagnosis of Tourette’s Syndrome later in life. These inspiring stories are woven through his identification and careful explanation of the four doors to a more fulfilling life:
BELIEVE THERE’ S A REASON YOU WERE BORN
FREE YOURSELF FROM LIMITATION
MAGNIFY YOUR LIFE
DEVELOP A LOVE-CENTERED MAP
Evans believes that we all want to know the meaning of our lives. In The Four Doors, he shows how even the most quiet life can be full of purpose and joy, if we choose to take that first step over the threshold.
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In his foreword, literally entitled "Why I Wrote This Book", author Richard Paul Evans explains that the idea for this came from a sort of off-the-cuff talk he gave to a room full of high schoolers. It was then honed into a speech he presented, at various times and in varying venues, to business people, criminals and drug addicts. A decade later, he expanded on the ideas he first presented and fashioned them into book form so that his blueprint for a more fulfilling life might reach the masses in general.
Boiled down to their essential form, the four "doors" or basic principles Evans works off of are:
BELIEVE THERE’ S A REASON YOU WERE BORN
FREE YOURSELF FROM LIMITATION
MAGNIFY YOUR LIFE
DEVELOP A LOVE-CENTERED MAP
From there, he delves deeper into topics such as self will, spiritual evolution, and the classic, "the only constant is change".
The gist of what he covers here:
SELF WILL: Nothing happens without you propelling yourself either into or out of a situation. Even the act of relinquishing freedom is a choice. Basically, anything that has you throwing even a thought at it is a choice on some level. Evans encourages readers to learn the power of discernment and to find the courage to filter out some of the garbage out there that people will sometimes feed you that could pull you away from your true path.
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION: Nothing happens by chance or accident. Your life definitely has a purpose. Your life on Earth is meant to be a schooling for your soul to spiritually evolve.
But Evans also reminds readers to keep in mind that true greatness in a person will not always equate to fame.
THE TRUE MEASURE OF GREATNESS
I have found that some people, in searching for a meaningful life, have confused greatness with fame. In spite of our culture's obsession with celebrity, a successful life does not have to include fame and, in most cases, shouldn't. Fame and greatness are not the same thing. There are great people in this world -- people of great accomplishment and service to humanity -- who are not famous. There are scores of famous people who are not great. In most cases, true greatness is a silent and lonely affair, unaccompanied by the trumpeted fanfare of acclaim. More important than being known is being of value. The great impact of a loving parent may shake nations. One can only wonder how different the world would be had Adolf Hitler been raised by two kind, happy, and loving parents. Likewise, the spark lit (or extinguished) by a caring and wise teacher may have saved the world more than once.
To be of value to others is a far greater ambition than the vain hope for the world's fleeting applause and fickle admiration. In the end, it is better to be loved by one person who knows your soul than a million people who don't even know your phone number.
ONLY CONSTANT IS CHANGE: Both our spiritual and physical states are in constant flux. The change is necessary because remaining stationary would mean we would inevitable start to diminish.
There are moments here where Evans gives readers some solid food for thought. A few of the topics I found interesting:
* Thinking about how all big inventions, marvels of architecture, world religions, democracy, all that.. started as a seed of an idea in one person's mind.. something to keep in mind when we feel too insignificant to create change or develop great art or inventions!
* During times of hardship, don't give into victimhood. Don't give the power of your life and well-being to someone (or something) else. We can't learn and mature without facing adversity from time to time.
* The mention of a survey once done at UCLA where over 1000 people were asked, "If you could be given a pill that would take away all disability from the body, but it would mean you would lose all the experience and wisdom you learned from living with the disability, would you take the pill?" Honestly, that would be a tough call for me. I appreciate life experience but chronic pain is a witch to live with.
Inspiring as this book is meant to be, Evans doesn't really cover new ground all that much. There were also a few things about the guy himself that just bugged me. I find it off-putting when authors heavily quote themselves in their own books. To me it just reeks of "look how genius I am! and humble too!" I really cringed at one point in this book when Evans says "I think every home in America should have this quote" and of course it was one of his own. UGH.
His story about the book signing also bothered me. He presented it as an example of him going for his dreams, tackling a goal he wanted... but in this instance, he describes taking the seat at an author book signing of an author who was apparently either late or a no-show. Evans presented himself as the author, got staff at the venue to wait on him as if he were the scheduled celebrity and then presented himself to an audience as an established author. This moment apparently helped launch his professional career. He was clearly proud of himself but I kinda saw it as him coming to his fame by somewhat dishonest means. Not classy. Granted, it's impressive to see him with such a success story professionally after having a lifelong struggle with Tourette's Syndrome as well as having a suicidal mother ... but still, for someone writing a motivational / self-help style work, closing on that book signing story was a disappointment for me.
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