I'm like Link.
Link is a hero. Well, he's supposed to be.
The problem with being a hero is that he has to become one first. And becoming a hero doesn't come easily. He has to go on a journey, and not just any journey. A quest – leave the island, infiltrate the fortress, find the treasure, slay the monsters, rescue the princess, get the sword, restore the power, defeat the evil, save the world – and that's only the half of it.
The thing about quests, though, is that they aren't always that easy either.
Sometimes, while Link's out searching for the treasure so he can continue with his quest to save the world, he gets stuck. He finds himself standing in a room that's just a circle, and all that's in that circular room are doors.
Lots and lots of doors.
Link goes up to the first door, but it's locked. Link tries a different door, but it's locked too. He moves to another door, and this one opens.
But when Link gets inside, all he finds are some monsters who want to end his quest so evil can rule the world. Link fights the monsters, and in the end he defeats them. He goes to open the treasure chest, and what does he find inside?
Not the treasure he's looking for. Instead, he finds a key. A key to the next room.
Link goes back into the first room and opens another door with his key and goes on in. And there are more monsters. He fights them, and when he wins, he opens the treasure chest, and there inside it is another key.
So Link takes the key and goes in the next door, and the next one, and the next one, and it's always the same. Fight the monsters, get the treasure (such as it is), and go out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Some fights are easier; some fights are harder. Sometimes he tries his key in the wrong door; sometimes it lets him right in.
Sometimes Link gets sick of it. Can't one door have something other than just another monster waiting to attack him? Can't one treasure be something other than a way into the next room? Can't one lock just be open in the first place so he doesn't have to go back and find another key? Link gets tired of trying doors. He wants the next door to be the right one. He doesn't want the next door to be locked or to just show him where the next door to try is or hide another monster. He wants to find the real treasure and get out of here.
But he can't. That original door, the one that let him into the room in the first place, has bars over it. No key is going to let him go back. So he's stuck here, trying doors.
Eventually, Link gets to the last room. This has to be it, he thinks. Now he'll get the real treasure. He beats the monster, and what does he get?
Nothing.
He goes back out into the main room, the one with all the doors, and what does he find there but more monsters. And not just any monsters. These are the toughest monsters yet.
The battle is long and hard, but finally, finally, he does it. He wins. He defeats the monster, and it disappears in a puff of black smoke. And there appears in that room with all the doors a treasure chest.
Link is battered and bruised and beaten and broken, but he pulls himself together, picks up his sword and shield, and pries the lid off of that chest. And inside, there it is. The treasure. The real one.
The bars slide off the door that let him into the room however long ago that was. He stumbles out through it, but when he gets out he stands up with his head held high. His work isn't done – he just got the treasure so he could keep going with his bigger quest. There are more doors ahead of him, he knows. The path this door has put him on is probably going to change.
Sometimes it's going to feel easy. Most of the time it isn't. But he knows – he knows – that he has help along the way. He doesn't have to do this alone. Even when it feels like he's alone, he isn't.
I'm like Link.
Link isn't quite a hero. But that's okay.
He's just in the process of becoming one.
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