Life Really Is a Fairy Tale

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” – Marcel Proust

I’d like to tell you a story.  It’s a magical story, and like most magical stories, it begins a very long, long time ago…

 

There was a young Princess.  She had a wonderful family and a delightful Kingdom and wanted for nothing, but she dreamed of riding her very own Unicorn.

Her parents wanted to help her, but they knew that Unicorns couldn’t be found let alone ridden, so they got her a pony.  He was the perfect round little pony.  He had just enough ornery to teach her many life lessons, but he was also a dutiful servant who was very protective of his young master.  She loved her pony and they spent many years together, but he wasn’t a Unicorn and one day it was decided he should move to a new Kingdom and help a new Princess learn about life.

The Princess was sad, but her wise parents quickly found her a cart horse, a very pretty cart horse.  This cart horse had been around enough to know the ropes and take the young Princess on many adventures.  The King and Queen saw all the Princess was learning and decided she could use some guidance so they found a Wise Wizard.  The young Princess and her cart horse spent many hours under the tutelage of the Wise Wizard and they learned much.  The Princess and the cart horse surprised many people and achieved great things.  They grew very close and the young Princess began to dream of becoming a centaur instead of riding a unicorn.   Then the cart horse died and the young Princess was very, very sad.

The good Queen and King couldn’t bear to see the young Princess so sad, so with the help of the Wise Wizard they found Pegasus for the Princess.    She was so proud of Pegasus.  They flew all over, all the while the Wise Wizard was coaching them and helping them plan and learn.  The good King and Queen made sure the Princess and Pegasus had all the opportunities they needed and life was wonderful for the Princess, but she still wasn’t riding a Unicorn.

 The time came for the young Princess to take Pegasus out into the greater world, leaving the protection of the Kingdom and the wisdom of the Wise Wizard behind.  For a while, she and Pegasus continued forward, but then Pegasus got sick and the Princess discover that she had to start her journey toward riding a Unicorn from scratch.

It was very hard without the wisdom of the Wise Wizard and without the protection of the Kingdom, but she struggled on.  She found a great Knight to help her, but he secretly didn’t believe in Unicorns, he just wanted to make her happy and he did.  For a while he even managed to distract her from her dream, but then she found the Warhorse.

The Warhorse wasn’t a unicorn.  Everyone knows unicorns are white.  But the Warhorse did have a roman nose and bulgy forehead.  The Princess dreamed that someday the bumpy nose would morph into a magical horn.  The Warhorse didn’t have wings like Pegasus, but she was big and could step over most obstacles.  The Princess dreamed maybe one day she’d learn to fly even without wings.  So the Princess spent hours and hours and days and days with the Warhorse.  She often heard the Wise Wizard’s words in her head, quietly reminding her to, “do it this way,” but the way she’d always done it didn’t always work on the Warhorse.  Outside the Kingdom and away from the Wizard she had to start thinking of fixes on her own.  It was up to the Princess to recognize and solve the problems.  She couldn’t just ride, she had to think.  It was very hard and many times she wanted to give up, but she believed in the big knobby Warhorse, so she kept going.

Then her Knight found her a magical mirror.  It showed her the past whenever she wanted to see it.  She realized just how wonderful it had been when she lived in the Kingdom and how wise the Wizard had been.  But then she saw that she was just a shadow in the mirror.  She was translucent, as if she wasn’t quite whole.  As the years spun by her form in the mirror grew more color, but it was swirly and unstable.  The Wizard tried to put the color where it belonged, but as soon as the Wizard turned away, the color moved and oozed around.  The Princess looked down at her hands holding the mirror.  They looked normal, so what had changed?

 

Every little Princess needs to learn to color themselves.  Kings and Queens can protect them while the pigments are added.  Wise teachers can show them where the pieces fit and what colors go where, but ultimately, each young Prince and Princess has to build themselves.  It doesn’t happen on its own.  While the young Princess struggled to turn her Warhorse into a Unicorn she learned about herself.  She took each little piece she’d been given, digested it and turned it into a piece of her.  All the while she was figuring out which pieces went where and what color things should be, she was teaching her Warhorse, giving her Warhorse an idea of what it could be, just as her parents and the Wise Wizard had done for her.

One morning the not-so-young-anymore Princess went out to her Warhorse.  The Warhorse was standing in the grass gazing at a field of jumps.  Before her eyes, the Princess watched the Warhorse start to shimmer then slowly sprout wings and grow a beautiful horn.  The Warhorse turned to the Princess and for the first time, they were both complete.  Then the Princess hopped up onto the Warhorse and they galloped away into the land of dreams fulfilled.

We aren’t entitled to fulfill our dreams, but we can earn them.   Even with parents who want the world for us, even with the best education, the best role models, and the most privileged upbringing, we must do the work ourselves, otherwise it’s just empty.  

Life is easy.  It happens naturally.  We don’t even have to think about our heart beating, but living, pursing a dream, that takes effort.  Whether you choose to go around the mountain, go over it, dig through it, or train a Unicorn to fly you there, effort is a required input and you are the only one who can get you there.  Life really is a Fairy Tale, but even Fairy Tales require lifting a broom or completing a quest.