If a foxhound could speak, I think he’d sound like someone you know.
Maybe even like you.
Not loud. Not bitter. Just… tired.
Tired in that quiet, invisible way that builds up when you've spent your whole life existing for other people.
I just finished reading The Life of a Foxhound by John Mills, and while most people will see it as a story about a dog, I saw myself in it. Saw so many people I know. People who were raised to serve. To be dependable. To meet needs without ever voicing their own.
We don’t always call that loyalty. Sometimes we call it survival.
A Voice You Recognize—Even If It Was Never Yours
The foxhound never complains. He doesn’t rebel. He doesn’t ask for more.
He just runs. Obeys. Pleases.
Because that’s what he was trained to do. What he was born to do.
He gives everything—his energy, his youth, his devotion—to a system that only values him as long as he’s fast and functional. The second he slows down, he becomes invisible.
Sound familiar?
We rarely say it out loud, but many of us live the exact same way.
We are seen as long as we’re useful.
Appreciated as long as we’re available.
Valued—but only when we meet the expectations someone else has silently built around us.
When Your Identity Is Someone Else’s Blueprint
What haunted me most wasn’t the foxhound’s fate—it was how much it mirrored our own.
He never got to ask who he was outside the hunt. He never got to explore what he wanted, what brought him joy outside of performance. Because he was never given a self. He was assigned one.
How many of us were taught to be strong instead of happy?
Selfless instead of seen?
Efficient instead of fulfilled?
That’s the thing about being defined by other people’s needs—at some point, you forget you’re allowed to have your own.
The Cost of Being the “Reliable One”
When your value is rooted in how well you serve others, you become a shape-shifter.
You adapt. You anticipate. You accommodate.
You become the perfect employee, the dependable partner, the always-there friend.
But you also disappear.
Piece by piece.
The foxhound never questioned it. He was proud to run. To hunt. To belong.
And maybe that’s the most tragic part. Not the work—but that no one ever told him he could be more.
If the Foxhound Could Speak, I Think He’d Say This:
“I gave everything they asked of me.
I was fast. Loyal. Good.
I didn’t ask for praise—just to be chosen again.
But one day, they stopped calling my name.
And no one told me what to do next.”
That’s what it feels like to be forgotten after a lifetime of giving.
To have no map for who you are without someone else’s expectations.
You Deserve to Exist Outside of Who You Help
This book made me pause.
Made me rethink how many ways I’ve handed over pieces of myself to feel needed, loved, included.
But maybe love isn’t supposed to be conditional.
Maybe identity isn’t supposed to be borrowed.
Maybe we weren’t meant to live like foxhounds—silent, obedient, disappearing once the chase is over.
Maybe our job isn’t to serve until we’re empty.
Maybe it’s to reclaim our name before the world forgets to say it.
Final Thought: Speak, Even If No One Asked You To
The Life of a Foxhound is more than a pastoral novel. It’s a quiet scream.
A whisper for everyone who’s lived as a function instead of a person.
If that’s you—if you’re starting to question who you are beyond your usefulness—I want you to know:
You are not selfish for wanting more.
You are not broken for feeling empty.
You are not forgotten.
You are just beginning.
.jfif)
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