The Ugly Duckling

Once upon a time, a duckling was born in a duckyard. He appeared different and was seen as “ugly.”

He was ostracized for how he looked.

He lacked a sense of belonging and kept thinking, What is wrong with me? There is something wrong with me. So he fled, encountering angry wild ducks, hostile geese, and repeated rejection.

Until one day, he encountered swans.

Although he expected to be rejected again, he was welcomed by the flock.

And more importantly, he realized that swans looked like him, realizing that he was a swan, not a duck.

It is often like this: when we are in an environment where we don’t feel like we belong, we can move through life like the ugly duckling, questioning ourselves, when, in the first place, there was nothing wrong with us.

For the ugly duckling, there was a lot of pain.

And within that pain, there was a yearning for something really important, a longing for belonging.

That yearning for belonging manifested in years of questioning himself, a deep sense of lack of belonging.

Through multiple experiences of rejection, he came to appreciate his experiences and learn something fundamental about himself and his experience: belonging happens within, and from truly accepting who we are.

Through experience, he was able to shed that story he had been carrying and reach a new level of transcendence and belonging.

Although the questioning may appear here and there, he experiences true belonging through self-acceptance.