A Story from the Mines
After years in darkness, a donkey is brought into the light.
It stands at the entrance of the mine. Daylight lies ahead. Darkness waits behind.
It hesitates. It sniffs the air.
Then it refuses to go back.
No one knows exactly what crossed its mind. But an old story, passed down among miners for generations, says that one of them quietly remarked:
“Smarter than us—we walked in by choice.”
The True Story
On July 4, 1838, a violent thunderstorm broke over the village of Silkstone, near Barnsley in Yorkshire. Floodwater rushed into Huskar Colliery, drowning twenty-six children who worked underground. The youngest was only seven years old.
Queen Victoria ordered an inquiry. Four years later, the Mines Act of 1842 banned all women and girls from working below ground, along with boys under the age of ten.
The problem?
The mines still needed workers.
The solution?
Animals.
Most of them were small horses known as pit ponies, though in the old stories they often became donkeys.
Small, strong, and unbelievably patient, they were perfect for tunnels too narrow for an adult to walk through upright.They were lowered into the mines in cages. Eight hours a day, they pulled heavy coal carts through endless darkness before returning to their underground stables.
They slept. They woke. And they returned to the dark.
Only once a year, during the mine’s annual shutdown, were they brought back to the surface. They stepped into the sunlight as though they barely remembered it.
At the peak, in 1913, around seventy thousand pit ponies worked in British mines. Many spent most of their lives underground and knew no other life.
The Moment No One Forgot
According to the old story, one of those donkeys was finally brought to the surface after years underground.
It reached the entrance. It looked back into the mine. And it refused to move.
They struck it. They called to it. They pushed it.
It refused.
At first, the miners laughed. Then they fell silent.
Finally, one of them whispered:
“Smarter than us—we walked in by choice.”
The Mine We Carry Within Us
It’s a clever line. But it’s a heavy one.
The donkey had no choice when it was taken underground. It was lowered into the cage. It never chose the darkness.
But we do.
We walk into jobs that steal our time and call them stability. We stay in relationships that drain us and call them commitment. We build habits that make our world smaller and call them routine.
And we remain there—not because we’re happy, but because we’ve forgotten what light feels like. Not because we love the darkness, but because staying feels easier than facing ourselves.
Not every mine lies beneath the earth. Some live inside us, taking the shape of fear, doubt, or an old story we’ve never stopped believing. Sometimes it isn’t reality that imprisons us, but the story we keep telling ourselves about it.
The donkey never forgot. Because it never chose the darkness in the first place. The moment it saw the light, it knew the difference.
But we are different.
We choose the darkness. Then, little by little, we adapt to it until it feels normal. Until light begins to seem like the exception.
Even those who’ve never known light can feel the difference the moment they see it.
The problem isn’t recognizing the light.
The problem is that darkness can become familiar—and leaving it takes courage.
One Last Question
What mine are you living in today?
I’m not necessarily talking about your job. I mean any place—literal or symbolic—that you once walked into willingly and now struggle to leave.
Not because the door is locked, but because you’ve lived in the darkness for so long that you almost forgot the light.
The donkey stood at the entrance and refused. Not because it was brave, but because it remembered. It knew the difference.
What about you?
Do you still remember what the light looks like… or has darkness become all you’ve ever known?
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