But somewhere around page 90 of The Life of a Foxhound by John Mills, I realized I wasn’t reading about a dog anymore. I was reading about myself. About us. About what it means to live your whole life for a role—only to one day discover the role has outlived you.
And no one tells you what to do next.
We’re All Trained to Belong
The foxhound in the novel isn’t named like a pet. He’s not cuddled or coddled. He’s bred, trained, praised when he performs, disciplined when he falters. His entire existence revolves around one thing: the hunt.
He is rewarded not for being “good,” but for being useful.
Tell me that doesn’t hit something in your chest.
Because many of us were raised the same way. Not with cruelty—but with structure. “Be good at school.” “Be helpful.” “Don’t make a scene.” “Be someone people can count on.”
We learned to shape ourselves around belonging. To align with purpose. To define ourselves not by who we are, but by what we do.
And it worked—for a while.
The Slow Fade of Relevance
The foxhound gets older. Slower. Less precise. His instincts remain, but his body betrays him.
And he notices.
He sees the younger dogs getting chosen. Feels the hesitation in the huntsman’s voice. There’s no villain here—just the inevitable march of time.
It’s a quietly brutal moment, watching him try to keep up. Not because he still loves the hunt, but because it’s all he’s ever known. The field was where he was celebrated. Needed. Alive.
And now, he's not.
Tell me that doesn’t feel familiar. Whether it’s a job, a relationship, a role we’ve built our identity around—what happens when it no longer needs us?
When the applause stops, and no one’s looking?
The Lie We’re Sold About Purpose
The modern world sells us the same promise over and over: “Find your purpose and never work a day in your life.”
But here’s the hidden clause in that contract: What if your purpose expires?
What if the career you built gets automated? What if your kids grow up and don’t need you in the same way? What if the thing you were so good at—just isn’t relevant anymore?
Like the foxhound, we’re left in a field we no longer belong to. Ears perked. Heart alert. Still waiting for the whistle that will never come again.
And here’s the hardest truth I’ve had to learn:
Purpose is beautiful. But it’s dangerous when it’s the only thing that defines us.
Aging Isn’t a Decline—It’s a Rebirth (If You Let It Be)
What struck me most about the foxhound wasn’t just his devotion. It was the silence that followed.
He didn’t know how to just be. Without a task, a mission, a pack—he was lost.
How many of us know how to exist outside our usefulness?
Aging, in our culture, is often painted as a slow decline. But The Life of a Foxhound made me think differently.
Maybe aging is less about fading—and more about shedding.
Shedding the need to be essential.
Shedding the role we’ve outgrown.
Shedding the idea that our worth is measured in output.
You Are Not Just Your Usefulness
If you're reading this and you're in the middle of your own quiet transition—from one phase of life to another, from being "needed" to being with yourself—I want to say this:
You’re not broken. You’re evolving.
Just like the foxhound, you were trained to belong. But now, you get to choose who you are beyond that belonging.
Let this be your permission slip to find identity not in what you do, but in who you are when no one’s asking anything of you.
Maybe that’s where real freedom begins.
Final Thought
John Mills may have written about a dog, but The Life of a Foxhound is, at its core, a story about humans. About me. About you. About how we all crave purpose—and fear the moment it’s taken from us.
But maybe the purpose isn’t in what we do for others. Maybe it’s in how gently we learn to hold ourselves when the doing is done.
No comments:
Post a Comment