Frog in the well. It croaks, its sound echoing and bouncing off the walls repeatedly, reverberating back at itself. It is the only sound it cares to know. The rain may pitter-patter against the top of the well, may dwindle down the walls of the well onto the frog, but it does not care about that sound. It cares only for its own croak, its own sound, because that sound is its own.

I was but a frog, hopping around vigorously in my own well, ignorant of the world around me, even the concept of a world outside of my own well around me. It was all insignificant, because if I was the frog in the well, strong and mighty against the worms and dregs of nature which had fluttered down to the well, then why could I not be the strong and mighty outside of the well?

But one day, the lightning strikes. At a math competition, my well was struck by lightning, its very foundation shaken to the core by the loss. Where I expected to easily get first, my efforts only put me right outside of the top 10. The bolt crashed into the well, blasting a wall apart, and I realized that the well’s strength is nothing compared to the forest around me. The roar of the bolt crashed around the quickly crumbling walls, violently smashing against the walls harder than my croak ever could. The flash of the light nearly blinds me, and as the storm flushes me out of my small little well, I am taken out of that small world I once knew.

Eventually, when the lightning dies down, the storm fades away, I am flushed out of my well, fully exposed to the world around me. And my eyes are still shut.

But when they open, I see not the jagged stones of the well around me, but rather the starry night sky. I see birds fluttering, snakes slithering, foxes and rabbits scurrying about. The trees sway with the breeze but do not bend, and the very air itself makes noises as its waves crash upon every surface. And my body is consumed with information. With beauty.

For a moment, I forgot that I was weak. I forgot that weakness as I took in the beauty around me.

But I couldn’t appreciate it for long. It was a beautiful, yet dangerous world. These same snakes that slithered ate without discrimination. These foxes and rabbits which scurried were in a fierce game of survival.

I could no longer stand to be weak if I wanted to continue surviving.

So, I toiled, and fought for my life until I could no longer croak. If I wanted to continue to appreciate that beauty, I had to survive.

A frog cannot survive by making excuses. Similarly, I cannot win that competition by simply making excuses.

So, within a year of that devastating loss which shook my well, I learned. Within a single year, I invested myself into my own growth, and grabbed on desperately to math. I fought to learn, and absorbed myself in its beauty.

Within a year, I learned 6th grade math. I learned pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry. I sped through 3 entire years of curriculum for the sake of survival.

And at the end, the lightning struck. It belted, its crackle soaring and blasting through the air.

However, I was a new frog.

A frog with a croak loud enough to drown out even the strongest of lightning.

I did not lose to it this time.