Once there was a coop filled with chickens of all ages. Big chickens, medium chickens and little chicks, and the very littlest was a chick named Scrappy.

Scrappy was a little but he was tough. He had to be, because he was on the bottom of the coop’s pecking order. That meant that the big chickens pecked the medium chickens, the medium chickens pecked the little chicks – and everyone pecked tiny Scrappy.

It was hard being the youngest. Scrappy became more and more bedraggled and sad as his feathers were pecked away.

One day Mrs. Werner told Donny, the strong, kind boy who raised all the chickens, that the chickens could play in her garden. The chickens loved running around and had lots of fun. But after a couple of days, Mrs. Werner’s garden was a mess, so she told Donny that the chickens needed to go back to the coop.

When it began to get dark, all the chickens went back to the coop to roost. Well, almost all of the chickens. One little chicken didn’t want to go back to the coop. Scrappy.

Scrappy had wandered into the goat pen and liked it there. The other chickens who wandered into the pen went right back out when they saw the big goats. Not Scrappy.

Scrappy had the freedom to go wherever he wanted to go, but he didn’t want to go far from the goat pen. He felt safe in the goat pen with frisky Bambi, gentle Buttercup, steady Mocha, and powerful Oliver. He wasn’t afraid of being stepped on, because he knew the goats wouldn’t hurt him.

The other chickens looked at Scrappy from their coop, and clucked disapprovingly. “Tut, tut, tut! Chickens belong with chickens, and chickens belong in a coop. What kind of chick lives in a goat pen? That Scrappy doesn’t know his place.”

But Scrappy did know the place he wanted to be, because he knew where he felt good. He knew where he felt safe. He had plenty of food, lots of straw to scratch around in, friends to keep him company, and most importantly, no one to pick on him and peck him.

Scrappy got bigger and stronger and his feathers began to grow back. He loved waking up every day to a new adventure in a world where he felt safe and loved. He knew how chickens were supposed to act, but when he did what the other chickens did he was miserable and sad. Now he had chosen a different path for himself and was happy and living a life he loved.

The End.

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It takes courage to consider what makes you feel happy and alive, when it means stepping outside the expectations others have for you. There may be fears to counter but there’s a rich life waiting to be lived.

Deep contentment doesn’t need to mean looking different from others or doing things that are visibly different. The point is to identify what makes you tick, what makes your life feel meaningful and enjoyable, and then to move towards that at whatever pace or in whatever way feels right to you.

Avivah