Her whole life, she thought she was a fish. She lived in a little bucket, swimming around in circles. Then one day, the corroded bottom of the little bucket (that had been her whole world) fell out. She fell to the ground. She thought she would die. She flopped, and she fought. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She was certain she wouldn’t live. Exhausted from flopping and fighting, for the first time in her existence, she became still. She resigned herself to the inevitable. In her stillness, she began to look around her. After being in the bottom of a bucket forever, the light around her was overwhelming and washed everything in white. She couldn’t see a damn thing. Then she realized she was not suffocating. Her eyes adjusted to the light. The things around her began to take shape. She could see the blue of the sky, the mountains, and the flowers. The loveliness of them inspired the strength she felt she needed to examine herself. Cautiously, she extended a fin, and realized for the first time that it wasn’t a fin at all. It was a wing. No wonder she hadn’t been a very good fish.

Moral of the story: when the bottom falls out, you figure out who you really are.