Skeleton Keys

If you work in an antique shop, you might own something called a skeleton key.

This is a type of key that has been filed down so that it can sneak into a lot of different locks, particularly those called warded locks. These wards are rigid, designed so that only the right type of key can turn the lock.

Skeleton keys bypass all this by just filing the key down, so it slides past the little traps without triggering them. The end of the key usually has a barb that can snag the lock mechanism at the very end of the key.

That’s incredibly useful! You only need one key to open a bunch of different types of locks. That seems like a very, very valuable key.

There are things in life that are a lot like skeleton keys. If you do them once, you never have to make another skeleton key again, so to speak. You’ve got the key now, and you can open up all the warded locks in your life with that one key. Now, it’s only the warded locks that happen to be nearby that you can open, but still! This one key is worth at least a hundred other keys.

These keys come in a few different categories, at least as far as I can tell. If you think the categories should be different, let me know:

One category is things you learn how to do. Learning how to ride a bicycle is the classic American kid’s example. Sure, you’re going to fall down a bunch and scrape your knees up while you’re figuring out the basics, but once you can stay balanced, you don’t ever have to go through the process of falling down repeatedly on a level road.

Now, there are some notable caveats of people who have to learn things all over again later in life. There are strokes and disorders that can cause a skeleton key to crumble, but for most cases, these keys stay with you for your whole life.

Similarly, learning a language can be a clumsy, painful process. Whether you’re learning how to speak for the first time as a young kid, or you’re learning French on Duolingo, the process starts out incredibly tough. You’re frequently frustrated as you try to make sense of the conversations flying around all around you, but after a year or two, you start to get it. You’ll probably always improve your skill in that language, but you never have to go through that incredibly tedious first phase again.

Habits, too, can be like skeleton keys. Like the bicycle or the French lessons, the first part is the truly tedious part. Years ago, I had a mountain of paperwork to read through. The stuff I needed to read through was incredibly tedious and pretty boring, so I resolved to set a timer each morning for 15 minutes. I would just read until the timer went off—I reasoned that I could do pretty much anything for that short of time.

Gradually, this habit stuck, and once I was done with the paperwork, I sought out stuff to read on my own, right at the start of my day. I still do that, and I think this habit helped me to springboard right into writing every day.

One more type of skeleton key is that of financial security. For some folks who are struggling to make ends meet, owning a home can be a way to climb up out of a debt hole forever. This is not financial advice, of course, so let’s get that out of the way now.

A mortgage is a lot of debt, so it probably sounds crazy for me to say that this is a way to climb out of debt, but if you’re putting money into a mortgage, you’re slowly starting to own more and more of the house as time goes on. If you rent, all of that expense goes away forever, at least as far as you’re concerned.

By putting some money away, you’ve effectively started saving cash, another form of skeleton key. If you have enough savings, you can begin to make decisions about employment opportunities based on those you want, not simply on the first opportunity that comes along.

Now, if you’re anything like me, when you read the phrase skeleton key, you think of Stephen King and his book with a similar title:

However, if you didn’t grow up in the 80s, what does the phrase mean to your ears?

Have you found any of these metaphorical skeleton keys in your own life? If you don’t mind sharing, what are they?