I spent my summer on the subway traversing the city underground, and the words that come over every loudspeaker in every single train as the doors close have become ingrained in my brain.

“Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”

I brought my computer to work every day and, thus, a giant blue purse to carry it in. One particularly crowded subway ride home, the doors partially shut, opened and repeated the instructions to get out of the way five times in a row.

Standing there squished and barely inside the car, watching the doors across from me close and jolt back open, I was thinking: “Jesus, who’s the idiot who needs a personal invitation to get out of the way of the freaking doors?”

Just then, the guy standing basically on top of me tapped my shoulder and said: “Miss, your purse is getting caught in the doors.”

Great. I’m the idiot.

As I awkwardly adjusted my obnoxiously oversized purse, I mouthed the word “sorry” to my irritated-looking fellow passengers.

Only later, after getting off the subway and walking home, did I realize what great, subliminal advice the subway system was sending me.

Sometimes you just have to get out of your own way.

When some phase or aspect of your life starts to transition away from being good for you, you can’t just sit back and wait for someone to tell you you’re the cause of stalled movement.

If something is not right for you, don’t cling to it because you wish it were. Maybe he’ll change? Maybe it will work out? No, odds are it won’t. And it’s probably because it’s not supposed to.

Ask yourself: “What’s keeping me here?” If the answers are rooted in fear or complacency, you’re doing yourself no favors.

You can make excuses or blame what’s around you for your failure to progress. But sooner rather than later, you have to critically look at where it is you’re standing.

I’ve begun to try to counter the things holding me back, but this comes long after I realized their harm.

Although I’ve cognitively known it was time to move on, I subconsciously kept one limb — or purse — in the doorway, enabling myself to remain in the safety of now.

Sometimes you’re not going to have a clear-cut sign or some grandiose form of closure. No doubt receiving a personal invitation would be choice, but that’s not life. Let the doors close and allow yourself to be whisked away by the undiscovered possibilities of the future.

My very first time taking the subway by myself was to Brooklyn. I knew of no iPhone apps for subway directions. I didn’t even have a subway map. Gulp.

Before leaving, I Googled the instructions and noted it’d be 13 stops until I reached my destination.

By about the eighth stop, I was pretty convinced I’d lost count. It was either the eighth or the 15th — I just couldn’t be sure. With a deep sense of sudden urgency and panic, I got out.

Surely, I was dreadfully lost, doomed to wandering the streets of Brooklyn forever. I thought to myself: “I can’t even count, much less hail a cab.”

But then I went up to street level and discovered I was, in fact, on the exact right path, only stops away from where I needed to be.

And as I sat at the station, waiting for almost a half hour for the next train to come, I questioned the nature of my instincts.

As the doors opened, I panicked, and instead of logically working my way through it — via directions from a stranger — I bailed on a situation that didn’t require bailing.

I let my discomfort with being in a new situation lead me away from something good.

Although this was a small-scale good — simply getting where I needed to go — it’s applicable to how fear can be a deterrent on the path to big-time goods.

So what is it that’s to be taken from the subway? At some points in your life, you’ve got to re-evaluate where you’re standing, and at others, you have to trust you’re ultimately going to get where you’re supposed to go.

Remove yourself from the immediacy of your fears, whether that means initiating changes or hanging tight. But no matter the circumstances, just like the subway, always keep going.

Abby Wood is a guest columnist at The State News and a journalism senior. Reach her at woodabby@msu.edu.