I have noticed something about people: most choose to avoid pain rather than find pleasure through hardship . Comfort seems to be their natural direction. When I choose pain instead, they look at me as if I am insane, or perhaps delusional.

But for me, pain feels like growth, while comfort often feels like quiet laziness.

The problem is that I have a goal. I cannot explain it clearly, but I feel as though I have seen my future somewhere ahead of me. Most people seem to live only in the present, yet I keep moving toward something they cannot see. Because of that, the things I do appear strange to them.

Being different creates distance. When you do not move like the others, they begin to treat you as though you belong to another species. We speak the same language, yet it often feels as though there is a barrier between us. The words are the same, but the meanings never quite arrive in the same place.

In my mind, the situation resembles a football field. Somewhere ahead there is a goal I must reach. The opposing team stands in front of it, defending it completely. That would already be difficult. But what confuses me even more is that sometimes it feels as if my own team is defending that goal from me as well.

All I seem to have are distant cheering voices—supporters whose faces I cannot see and whose identities I do not know.

Recently, however, the field has become crowded. There are so many people standing in front of the goal that I can no longer see it clearly. I do not know where I am supposed to pass through.

Everything feels blurry now.

People tell me I am being too hard on myself. Perhaps they are right. I ask myself that question often: am I?

I cannot find the answer.

And lately a more troubling thought has begun to appear.

What if the goal I have been chasing is not really there?

What if I have mistaken vision for stubbornness ?

Or worse—what if I have been running with absolute conviction, believing I was moving toward victory, only to discover that I have scored the ball into my own goal?

And if that is true, then the question becomes unavoidable:

Was I brave for chasing the goal…

or merely afraid to admit I had chosen the wrong direction?