To be an ant is to carry the whole weight of survival in a body no bigger than a grain of rice. It is to live in a world where your existence is unnoticed by many, but your labor holds together the life of a colony.
Ants are small, so small that most of us step on them without thinking twice. But behind their tiny size lies a very sad truth, they work harder than most creatures on earth, and their journey in search of food mirrors our own human struggles and the never search for happiness.
When an ant leaves the colony, it doesn’t do it for pleasure. There are no rewards, no promotions, and no celebrations waiting for it. It leaves because it must. They do so to feed the colony because somewhere, someone in the colony is hungry. Somewhere, the queen needs feeding. Somewhere, the community is relying on that one small body to bring something back.
It walks, sometimes for meters, sometimes for hours, around rocks, up walls, across roads, past predators, dodging every danger possible. Sometimes when they invade the wrong kitchens, they don’t come out alive; they are destroyed.
If you consider the size of the ant compared to the distance it travels, it is like a human walking for hundreds of miles, barefoot, with nothing but hope as their fuel.
But not all ants that leave home ever return. Some are crushed by feet. Some are eaten by birds. Some are washed away by rain or heat. Some simply collapse from exhaustion, far from the safety of home. How sad.
And when an ant doesn’t return, the colony doesn’t stop. No one goes looking. There are no search teams, no vigils, and no grief counselors. Life moves on and even more beautifully without them.
Just like ants, we leave home too, some of us to faraway countries, some to big cities, others just to the other side of a new beginning, to get a better education or an opportunity. We go looking for for peace and most importantly, something better than what we left behind. But life isn’t kind to all. Some don’t make it. Many fail in school. Others succeed beyond their widest dreams. Some get stuck. Some disappear, not because they wanted to, but because life swallowed them.
You probably know someone who left and never returned. Someone who got lost in the journey of survival. They had dreams, but somewhere on the road, those dreams drowned in sickness or simply through the wear and tear of time. Their names fade. Their stories remain unfinished. And the world, just like the ant colony, keeps moving.
Ants teach us a kind of brutal honesty we avoid in our own lives, not every journey ends in success. Not every effort is rewarded. Sometimes, you do everything right and still fail. Sometimes, you give your all and still lose. And no one may ever know what you went through. But that doesn’t mean it was meaningless.
Even the ant that dies along the road had purpose. It tried. It pushed. It gave. It was part of something. And in a way, its story lives on in those who made it because of the trail it helped create. You see, ants leave a scent trail for others to follow. Even if they don’t come back, others can find the way because of the path they marked.
Some people are trailblazers like that. They may not reach the end, but they make it easier for someone else to walk that road. That is the meaning of life: to be able to touch a life other than your own and continue to do so even when you are losing yourself in the process.
So yes, ants may be small, but their journey is full of takeaways, lessons of our existence and how to remain strong in our fragile planet. They go as far as they must, for as long as they can, not because they know they will succeed, but because they must try. And we, humans, are not so different.
We get up every day with weight on our shoulders; responsibilities, expectations, fears and we go. We move forward, not because we are sure of what is ahead, but because standing still is not an option. We move because someone relies on us. We move because something in us still believes, even when we are tired.
But life will test you. It will stretch your spirit. Sometimes, you will question why you even started. You will wonder if it is worth it when no one notices how far you have come, how many storms you have crossed just to be where you are.
And sometimes, like the ant, you will find yourself lost in a place where you are not sure you will make it back.
But even then, remember this, your struggle matters. Your effort is not invisible. You may feel small, but the story you carry is not.
And if life ever becomes too much, if the journey feels too long, too painful, just think of the ant. Think of the thousands of steps it takes each day, not because it has hope of reward, but because it has the courage to move anyway.
We are all walking our long roads and it is annoyingly a lonely journey. Some of us will return home. Some of us will not. Some will succeed. Others will fail and most will give up before getting there. But in the end, what matters is that we dared to leave, dared to try, and dared to care. So how far will ants travel in search of food? As far as they need to. And so will we. Peace.