Balanced Scales

I wonder if it would entertain    
Were I to tell you a story  
A tale of woe and sacrifice    
That’s void of hero’s glory    
   
Could you conceive of selflessness    
So intense and so extreme    
Of stripping yourself of all you love    
To carry on with simply being    
   
It would break the world’s heart    
Yes they’d fall to their knees    
If they’d just stop and listen    
To a day in the life of me  
   
I do not ask for your pity  
No, don’t pray for my soul    
For in addition to this hardship    
I’ve felt happiness than none could know    
   
So as for the moral of this story  
The lesson that one might learn  
Listen closely to what follows    
And learn how the world turns    
   
You must feel pain to know pleasure    
You must sacrifice in order to gain  
You cannot control the weather  
You’ll never love the sun without rain  
   
You must feel defeat to know glory  
And you must crawl before you can walk    
Beauty holds no merit if it is ugly  
And true love can’t exist without loss