You Were Never a Duck

I watched a video today about The Ugly Duckling, but this time, it wasn’t the usual version I grew up with. Prof. Laureen shared a different perspective — one that quietly rearranged something in me.

She said the “ugly duckling” never became a beautiful swan. She was a swan all along. She just didn’t know it yet.

That line stayed with me.

For most of her life, the swan thought she was a duck because that’s what everyone around her believed. The ducks compared her, judged her, and pointed out how she didn’t look or sound like them. They criticized what they didn’t understand — and she believed them. She thought she was less, unworthy, or somehow wrong for being different.

But the truth was simple: she was never meant to fit in with the ducks. She wasn’t broken. She was just in the wrong pond.

It made me think about how often we do this to ourselves.
We suffer because we compare.

We believe the opinions of people who don’t even see us for who we truly are.

We shrink, we question, we apologize for being different — all because we forget that maybe we were never meant to look, sound, or live like the ducks around us.

Maybe the real suffering comes not from rejection, but from misunderstanding our own nature.

Prof. Laureen said something powerful: “This is how you get out of the bottle — if the bottle is you.”
And I think that means waking up to the truth of who you already are. Realizing that you are not defined by the labels, the comparisons, or the noise of others. You are not ugly, behind, or unworthy. You are simply discovering the reflection that was always there.

Sometimes, the journey isn’t about becoming something new — it’s about remembering what you’ve always been.

You are not meant to fit in every pond. Stop dimming your light to belong where your wings were never meant to unfold.
You were never a duck — you were just surrounded by the wrong reflections.