I hung my head in despair.

I have tried.

I have been disciplined.

I have sacrificed.

I have watched everyone around me live the life I want to live. I gave away everything to bring me closer to that life.

But years and years have passed. It feels unreachable. Eternal. As if the expanse of the infinite stretches between me and everything I wish for, continually crashing and expanding with every effort I make.

I sit on a random pile of leaves, not caring who or what may approach me. The forest is seldom visited by intelligence anyway.

It is my place of sorrow. To mourn the life I once had, and the life I never will.

In this moment of misery, I hear a voice in the forest.

“Look in the puddle.”

Who said that? It sounded so…clear. So crisp. As if the air itself had embodied into a mouth over my ear.

I spin around to see who was speaking, and there’s nobody around. The ambience of the forest continues to rustle in the background.

They said look in the puddle. What puddle?

I stand up, listening for the voice again, but there’s no further dialogue.

I begin to walk forward with no particular destination in mind, contemplating if my depression is marring my sanity before a soft splash covers my ankle.

The puddle.

Sunlight briefly flickers through the array of grey above me, and for a moment, through the distorted waves of the water, I see myself.

It’s not a view I often see. Water is the only way to do so, and there’s not much of it around.

I have…I have grown. Stronger. When was the last time I saw my reflection in the rivers of our people?

My beard has filled out. My arms, thicker. My frame, broader.

It makes me pause.

Do I doubt myself because I have failed, or because my success pales to the success of others? I look nothing like the child I once was.

The gentle breeze in the forest says nothing to me.

So my toil and suffering is worth something at least. I have grown physically.

Upon further reflection, I have grown mentally too. I may be frowned upon by my people, but I have not let it deter my studies and training, learning a great many things in the process.

The longer I think, the more defined the realisation becomes.

I am not a failure.

I am not weak.

I am not the lesser.

I am strong. Resilient. I have been compared to others all my life and I can still find value in my existence. My place in this world was not given to me, I carved it out for myself. I earned it.

I deserve it.

I am worthy of it.

With my renewed vigour and tenacity, I retrieve my rucksack, take a final look around me, and begin walking back to the village.

As I turn around to begin my journey,

a small glowing bird flaps silently in the air in front of me.

And they speak to me.

“Remember to look at what is truly significant, and discard what isn’t.”

I abruptly awake in bed, nearly shooting the covers off my torso onto the ground.

A dream?

No matter. I still feel the same vigor I felt within my sleep.

I will do more for myself from here on.

I will enlist the empty monotony of life no longer.

I must do better.