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The Seed in the Dark.

“Every ending is the beginning of growth.

By Adil KhalidPublished 5 months ago 3 min read

The Seed in the Dark*

It begins in silence.

Beneath the surface of the earth, where no light reaches, a seed rests. To anyone looking down from above, it’s invisible. To the world around it, it may as well not exist. The soil presses in heavy and cold. Days pass without change. Weeks. Months.

Inside the seed, though, something stirs.

At first, it doesn’t feel like growth. It feels like pressure. The soil is suffocating. The darkness is endless. If the seed could think, it might believe it had been buried alive. It might ask the questions many of us whisper to ourselves when life presses down hard:

“Why here? Why now? Why me?”

But the truth of the seed’s journey is that the darkness isn’t a grave. It’s a beginning.

One day, almost without noticing, the seed cracks. It feels like breaking. Painful. Wrong. A part of itself is torn open. But what feels like breaking is really opening. The crack is how life escapes.

A tender shoot pushes against the soil. It doesn’t know where it’s going, only that it must keep moving. Every inch upward feels impossible. Every inch feels like climbing a mountain blindfolded. The soil is heavy. Stones block the way. Roots of older plants twist across its path.

The seedling could give up at any moment. After all, no one is cheering for it. No one is watching. The struggle is invisible. That’s the hardest part: to keep pushing when it feels like no one notices, when it feels like the fight is unseen.

But the seed keeps going.

Because somewhere deep within it, written into its very being, is the knowledge that there is light above. It has never seen the sun, but it knows it exists. That hope pulls it upward like gravity in reverse.

And then, after days, weeks, or months of struggle, the shoot breaks the surface.

Light.

Warmth.

Air.

From the outside, the sprout is tiny. Fragile. To a passerby, it may not even be worth noticing. But if you knew what it took to get here — the weight of the soil, the breaking, the pushing — you would know this little green shoot is not weak. It is a survivor. It is a miracle.

That seed in the dark is you.

We all spend seasons underground. Maybe it’s the failure no one sees, the heartbreak you don’t post online, the nights when you’re lying awake wondering if you’re ever going to make it out. Maybe it’s the rejection letters, the business that didn’t work, the dream everyone else laughed at.

It feels like you’ve been buried. Forgotten. Stuck.

But what if you haven’t been buried? What if you’ve been planted?

The difference is everything.

When you’re buried, it’s the end. When you’re planted, it’s the beginning. The soil that presses down on you isn’t meant to suffocate you — it’s meant to protect you while you grow strong enough to rise.

The breaking you feel isn’t proof of weakness — it’s proof that life is coming through. The resistance you face isn’t punishment — it’s preparation. Every obstacle builds the roots you’ll need to stand tall when you finally reach the light.

The seed doesn’t bloom overnight. Neither will you. But step by step, push by push, day by day, something is happening in the dark. Even if you can’t see it yet.

And here’s the truth: the struggle never really ends. Even after the sprout breaks through, storms will come. Winds will bend it. Seasons will strip it bare. But every time it survives, it grows stronger. The tree that stands tall is the same seed that once thought the darkness was the end.

So when you feel the weight of life pressing down, remember the seed. When you feel cracked open, remember: the crack is where the growth begins. When the path feels impossible, remember: just because you can’t see the light doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Push anyway. Grow anyway. Believe anyway.

Because one day, you’ll break the surface. One day, you’ll see the light you’ve been reaching for all along. And when you do, the world will look at you in awe, never realizing the battles you fought underground, the nights you almost gave up, the strength it took just to stand.

But you’ll know.

You’ll know that the darkness didn’t bury you. It planted you.

And you rose.

Climate

About the Creator

Adil Khalid

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