The Restoration of Fairy Tales

The Complexity of Belief and the Unlikeliest of Unities

One of the greatest inventions of all time, perhaps even greater than the automobile or the television or the computer, has been the fairy tale.  It gives us something to dream about, something to think about, something to write about and something to trust in. 

No device is needed to bring a fairy tale to life in our minds, just our imaginations and our fantasies … and maybe a little belief.

But belief can be a tricky thing.  It can create turmoil when we discover that others don’t quite see it the way we do.

– We believe in the possibility of miraculous things happening, but not necessarily miracles. 

– We believe in the theory that we are not alone in the universe, but not necessarily aliens. 

– We believe that we are guided by some sort of higher power, but don’t all have a belief in the same God. 

– We believe in fate, but not necessarily soul mates.

A fairy tale, however, might well be the most difficult thing to believe in.  Yet somehow, we all believe in it.

At the same time, a fairy tale is the only belief that can change because of the experiences of our lives.  Fairy tales are born in our minds, in our consciences and in our fantasies.  And when we don’t find the luck in realizing them, fairy tales die.  And we no longer believe.

It’s curious that we are willing to believe in other concepts, regardless of what has happened to us personally.  Yet we give up on the fairy tales so easily. 

Is it that we never truly believed in the fairy tales to begin with or did society destroy our belief in fairy tales by ridiculing us for dreaming?

Society gave us automobiles and televisions and computers.   But did we decide to trade in the wishes of our hearts for the wonders of this world?

Perhaps it’s time to restore the belief in fairy tales.  If we don’t believe in what our hearts seek, how can we hope to find it?

Maybe, just maybe, we never stopped believing …

——————————————————————–

The Effect of Tiaras and Prince Charming

So what have fairy tales ever done for us?

Anything?

Probably not, right?

But then again … maybe they have done some things for us.

Consider this possibility for a moment:

Disney didn’t destroy our perceptions of fairy tales. Disney also didn’t destroy our belief in fairy tales. What they chose to do was give us a guide to follow.

Were it not for Disney, fairy tale princesses wouldn’t be nearly as endearing as they are to us. So much so – that most every BabyGirl has her favorite Princess and if asked she could go into great detail as to why that Princess is her favorite and why that Princess is better than all the others.

I had to do a little research and ask some friends to come up with this list, but the Disney Princesses include:

Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Tiana, Mulan and Megara

Were it not for Disney’s Prince Charming would we still have Chivalry in the dictionary?

And how many times have you heard the statement: “The Age of Chivalry is dead”?

But is it really dead? Or did we just forget about it when we decided to stop believing in where it came from? … fairy tales.

Imagine a world where we didn’t strive to be like Prince Charming or to dream like a Princess.

Is that really the case? Of course not. We all believe. It just gets harder when we’ve believed in the past and not found the happy ending we envisioned. And it isn’t that we don’t succeed in finding what we are looking for or even that what we are looking for doesn’t really exist. It’s that we stop trying and stop believing. Plain and simple.

Having been there once why would anyone ever want to go back again? Ever heard the statement: “…insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result”?

Perhaps, what we need to believe in again, even more than fairy tales, is ourselves. And once we do that, maybe we ought to start believing in other people again, too.

But here’s the good news … We all ready do believe in ourselves and in others. Sometimes, we just get inundated by what we are told. And if you hear something enough, it becomes truth to you, even if it isn’t.

Make a check list for yourself. How many of these statements have been made to you?

“I told you so.”

“You keep setting yourself up for heart ache.”

“It’s time to grow up and forget about the fantasies.”

“I could’ve told you this was going to happen.”

“All princes are frogs in stolen crowns”

“There is no Knight in Shining Armor”

“Fairy Tales aren’t real.”

These are the inspiring words we take to heart.

It’s when you get to the point that you stop listening to what people are telling you and you start remembering the truth which you know about yourself and so many things that you will be able to believe again in a manner for which others no longer can.

This time around, you’re wiser. This time around, you know what you’re looking for. But maybe just as important, this time around you know what you’re not looking for.

Why do we try again? Why do we bother?

Because the fact is, we eventually do give the wishes of our hearts a second chance. Might it be from a lesson we learned while watching an animated movie or perhaps from a story once read to us?

I’m not suggesting that anyone live with their head in the clouds. I’m suggesting that we remember what we once knew and believed.

So how is it done? How do we relearn what was unlearned through disappointment.

Hmm. This may take some thought. Thankfully, there’s a way which may work …

But is it really worth it to bother trying to figure it out?

I would tend to say that most people would answer: “Yes, it is.”

But perhaps they don’t know how.

——————————————————————-

The Art of Remembering What We Never Forgot

In a fairy tale, the Prince and Princess always find that happy ending and reach the destination at the end of their journey. People say “That’s fantasy. It’s not reality. And that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life.”

In real life, the Prince and the Princess have to work at it before anything can come true.

But even fairy tale couples had to do a little work, didn’t they?

Ariel and Eric had to find a way to overcome some impossible obstacles. As did Belle and the Beast.

There always seemed to be some sort of reason why things couldn’t work.

Mulan and Shang had a war to fight first.

The thought may be that those are the sort of things which make fairy tales so enchanting. It doesn’t work like that in real life and a fairy tale always has the perfect solution.

Let’s examine some of these so called “perfect” fairy tales which couldn’t possibly happen in real life.

Cinderella – (who wasn’t born a princess.) The story of a girl who lived a life of servitude to her wicked step sisters and step mother. But she made the best of her situation, befriending animals and never losing sight of her dreams and the wishes of her heart.

Now … in real life, there is no fairy godmother who suddenly appears and creates a magic pumpkin carriage with her wand. But … in real life, we have the internet, don’t we? Think of the people we have met and the friends we have made whom we never would’ve met had it not been for the internet. Perhaps the magic wand in real life takes on a different form.

——————————

Jasmine – Here’s a princess who had absolutely everything she could possibly want and she had it at her fingertips, except for someone to love her as opposed to her possessions. She was lonely and she was sad, but, like Cinderella she never lost sight of her dreams and the wishes of her heart. That seems to make a difference, doesn’t it?

——————————

(Isn’t it interesting how we surround ourselves with the love of things like animals, perhaps in preparation for not having love otherwise?)

Mulan – A girl who dressed up like a warrior and joined her country’s army so her father wouldn’t have to. In the deal, she met someone she fell in love with and in the end, he fell in love with her. (And yes, Mulan had animal friends, too.)

—————————-

Pocahontas – A native American princess who actually saved John Smith’s life. (Also animal friends.)

———————————-

What do all these princess stories have in common? The princesses took care of other people and found happiness in doing so and by doing so, they found the wishes of their hearts. Princesses receive their desires, not only because they continue believing, but because they think of others first. And any wish of the heart which begins with showing love to others deserves to receive it back.

Belle had charity in her heart, didn’t she? (But she didn’t have animal friends. Instead, she had household items that thought she was wonderful.)

The truth of the matter may be that, with the exception of Prince Charming, a lot of the Princes seemed to have problems bigger than what they could solve on their own. And these problems often blinded them to the help they received and the love they had for princesses in their lives.

This isn’t to say that princes get it wrong and princesses get it right. They both get it. And what they got was that they needed each other in order to make it work.

——————————-

These “perfect” fairy tales showed how two people could deal with the problems that real life handed them.

So is there any sort of summary from all this? Or was it just a nice little review of happy Disney movies? Might there be lessons in amongst all those songs we know by heart?

Or is it all just fantasy to us?

In real life, the only thing better than a fantasy is the reality which includes it.

Maybe the best way to try to draw a conclusion is to say that in fairy tales, the Prince and Princess dealt with real life. And they made it work. Perhaps because they realized that they needed each other. But more than that, they realized what it meant to need someone.

They never asked themselves: “Is this right for me?” They always asked: “Is this right for us?”

So how do we believe again in fairy tales coming true?

– We remember that the wishes of our hearts were placed there for a reason. And those wishes are gifts, waiting for us to open them.

– We remember what we need and we learn what others need. And we recall the journeys we all ready led.

And when we realize that what we need is what it is in our hearts, we choose a guide to follow the path that our hearts take us down. We naturally look to those things we trusted in our lives … one of which being the fairy tales that taught us how to believe.

So how do we believe again? By remembering what we never really forgot.