So the prince arrives to rescue his prospective bride. Unfortunately he comes across a bitter surprise.

Redunzel takes everything prince says out of negative context and the results are disappointing at best.

“Redunzel, Redunzel let down your hair!” The prince said

“What! Did you say to me you give no care?”

Affronted the prince responded

“No, I said to let down your hair” 

“What do you mean, ‘you have found another more fair’?”

Exasperated the prince decided to change the age old phrase for fear that miscommunication would keep Redunzel in this dreadful place.

“Redunzel, I have come to save you?”

Seething she responded “How dare you? I have brains and strength and can do anything you can too!”

“Redunzel, you have been trapped fifteen years in that tower.”

Once again offended, Redunzel responded “Do you fear I have become a bitter dowager?”

With a sigh he set his sights high and said, “No Redunzel, it is simply time we marry.”

“Well I’ve found your entire tone and demeanor to be quite dreary.”

Without reproach prince gave the situation a different approach.

“My sweet, my dear, my fair Redunzel, let me release you from this tower. We will ride free, you and me, we will conquer the world, you will see. Your imprisonment from childhood was a vicious curse, but there is no reason for the damage to be any worse. There is a whole world out there ready to bring out the best in you. Come, you are the only one stopping yourself from making your wildest dreams come true”

“I do not know about the world out there, with freedom and such I am afraid I will not like it very much.”

“I am sorry Redunzel, I am afraid I did not hear you well. It sounds as though you choose to remain in your own personal jail cell.”

Redunzel pondered and floundered and came to a steady conclusion that set the prince into acute confusion.

“From this tower I find a vantage, any misgiving I have I could blame on this stone cage. Taking responsibility for my actions feels like a chore and choosing to move on and live without the burden of my past will someday be a bore.”

The prince was caught with the idea to give a scathing rebuttal, but he decided she was not worth the trouble so he did what was most smart and that was to speak from the heart.

“Redunzel, I pity you. Not because you were trapped in this tower, you see? But rather because you choose to be. You had a bitter past and the damage will outlast. It was repairable, but you comfortably nestle in your sweet oblivion and I find that reprehensible. You might be set for life and everyday you will survive, but you will never truly thrive. You will wallow in self pity and wonder why your life is not more pretty. I hope you realize you are the captain of this boat of negativity you sail, all while you complain and whine and wail that life is so very unfair. But truly I hope one day you find you are the pun in your own silly little jest, whole heartedly, sincerely, goodbye, I wish you the best.”

Once in a while or a life time it seems

A sparkly fairy will come to be

Making everyone around her happy with fairy dust

Being in her presence will make you feel like you’ve come through a bout of good luck

Many question the root of her magic

“It’s her hair” “It’s her smile”

But relaying it to her appearance is really quite tragic

For a keen eye could see that her sparkle comes from within

From a heart with so many carats of gold they’d stop world hunger ten fold

From a soul so generous and giving everyday feels like the season’s best pickings

There is a time when you see her wings slow their flutter

And her happy disposition melt like butter

That is when she feels the cause for your upside down frown

So good is she at making you happy

That she takes responsibility for your self imposed sappy

When she holds you dear

She goes out of her way to make sure the corners of your lips reach from ear to ear

Dearest Fairy I hope you see, your sparkly wings flutter and your wand happy sounds’ll utter so long as you just be

❤

Oh Eve, I’m sure you’ve been asked this question a million times. Scratch that, 107 billion times; for I am sure every human to inhabit the planet has asked this at some time or other, but why did you condemn us all to misery with a flick of your jaw? I find it difficult to believe that out of the seven deadly sins, gluttony was all of our’s demise. You could’ve scoffed at the apple with pride, angrily smashed the apple down, enviously snatched the apple from the snake, been too lazy to eat the apple, or greedily tried planting your own apple tree; but no, you decided to sink your teeth into the end of paradise.

Was this all fabricated to make us feel like humans are to blame for the negativity in the world? I don’t believe you were so selfish, Eve. I believe someone stretched the truth, and that apple is gone now because someone else decided to eat it. I don’t believe you did. Maybe you set your eyes on it and then were well on your way.

But damn it, Eve, you did bite the apple and I have you to blame for my lows! You and only you, I can’t believe you would do that to all of your descendants. I’ve met many selfish mothers, but you take the cake, Eve – all because you bit the apple.

What’s even the point, Eve? Why focus on swimming in a sea of benevolence with malevolence hovering over the surface. We make light of our miserable situations with clichés like “What goes up must come down” or “It’s all uphill from now”. Well guess what? I’ve been uphill. It hurts your thighs, gives you shortness of breath, and leaves you sore the next day.

I don’t understand why you did it. Maybe you were hungry? No good fish were in the river that day… Can you help me understand why we must suffer so? Maybe come into my dreams tonight and give me a visual of the events. I would understand if the snake had Adam in a choke hold and forced you to bite the apple for the sake of Adam’s life. I just want to know the pain I see, feel, and hear is merited. I want to know why I have to experience your sin with most of my senses.

Eve, I understand nothing I say or do is going to change the fact that you ate the apple. Sometimes things happen without reason or there is reason beyond what we are able to comprehend. Perhaps we must each live in the universe for 100 years to garner the true significance of paradise when we get to it.

Come to think of it, I’m ok with there being no paradise. If there was and you did bite the apple, Eve, then I thank you, because you have taught us to make our own earthly paradise. Without my father’s disappointment I wouldn’t appreciate the significance of his pride. Without my mother’s worry I wouldn’t garner the strength of her love. Without my love’s frown I wouldn’t be blinded by the radiance of his smile. Without my dog’s bite I wouldn’t gather the love of her licks. And to put it simply without rain there’d be no rainbows.

A lovely plié, a perfect sashay, draws applause from the audience. The avid claps keep her coming back to this stage her life, this dance her chance to prove to her self that she isn’t faulted.

Her talent indisputable, her charms unarguably natural. But in her performance you find an error of great importance for in her pirouette you see that she dances for you, and in your applause she will find the greatest peace in her mind. The only bliss her performance causes her is the praise that comes with, and the self satisfaction it will raise.

Here come the faults a stumble here a trip there. The audience is uncomfortable and together they all see that the pressure to garner a good impression has caused ballerina’s regression. She sees not her mistakes, but only the audience’s poor taste in their judgement and aggressive debasement.

She once danced for herself and what a lovely dance it was. A freestyle of hopes and dreams, so long ago it seems that this lovely dancer was a genuine prancer through kindness and realizations that her creation wasn’t for other’s entertainment, but for her own achievement.

Ballerina twirls and with it comes unexpected contact with the floor, such failure opens the door to recognition that her value lies within the applause of her own heart not those who watch from afar.

She stands… her back to the audience she leaps up and down a spin then two, a punch in the air, she let down her hair. As she continued to prance her heart beat advanced in happy movements that were a testament to her newfound freedom from other’s opinions. The audience clapped and stood for Ballerina’s dance was remarkably vivacious and her enjoyment thoroughly contagious. But alas ballerina cared not a fig because she danced and pranced and lived to her own heart felt jig.

Thoughts… you colorful vibrant dancers that use my brain as a dance floor everyday, please stop dancing your gloomy music. I don’t mind a sad song every now and again, but even as a huge fan, Coldplay all day could be a lot to bear. Perhaps it’s my job to change the tune. The music I give must cause you dread because throughout my whole body I feel your heavy tread.

With my eyes I promise to show you how to let their sights illuminate your flaws with curious new movements. Telescope into this beautiful thing we call life, not question why we’re here, but discover it. Not fear what song comes next, but watch the current one and with wide eyed wonder embrace the next one.

With my my nose I promise to breathe more movement into your dance moves so you never fear not being able to dance a happy tune. Let the variety of scents around me fill you with melodious memories.

With my ears I promise I’ll let the rhythm of conversation flow to you and illuminate you with new dance moves. The sounds of life around me will provide new beats for you.

I grow weary of growing weary of you, of trying to stop you from dancing for my own comfort. I understand I must teach you to dance to the rhythm I wish you to dance to. I promise to play better music, to be the best dance instructor. From now on when the music you dance is a gloomy opera I’ll shake my whole body to switch your tune into a happy salsa. I appreciate you, dearest thoughts and look forward to do away with this horrid battlefield I’ve created for you and build you a marvelous dance floor.

Dear Diamond,

You beautiful, precious, multifaceted diamond. You have been sold cheap and now your luster you cannot see. You started off as carbon, and the hard knocks of life have given you exquisite shine. Yet an unfortunate meet with a poor lapidary has left doubt in your mind. This lapidary’s soul has suffered some erosion, and his treacherous mind will thrive on your corrosion.

You brilliant, bright, sparkling diamond, do you not see the beauty with which you have crafted yourself? Do you not see the brilliance that your resilience has created? Resilience that will prevail once the toxic commitment to this lapidary you dispense. Do you not see how bright your facets gleam? You have blinded those who have set their eyes upon you with what you’ve been able to attain, but you have let your accomplishment’s luster wane. Do not fear, your strengths will prove that the lapidary’s destructive efforts will be in vain. So go on and sparkle; if your gleam blinds it shall free you from a poor lapidary’s binds.

Go on, begin the abolition of your value’s contrition. You shine bright, let the mirror of life commence your fight from the lapidary’s poor judgement that you are to remain in his inept confinement. You are so much more on your own; do you not see? You might not, but when you do, the crown jewel you will be.

Take the situation you are in this very moment. Are you sitting down? Are you standing up? Outside or inside? If you find yourself describing one situation, but thinking that you rather do the other, ask yourself if you are physically shackled, not allowing you to be where you want to be. I’m going to go ahead and rule that out since you are reading this at the moment. Chances are you are mentally shackled; that’s almost worse.

Complaints sprinkle throughout our daily lives in no colorful way like confetti, but rather as little constant reminders that we are not where we want to be. I consider complaints to be important; it’s a way to vent about a situation that you don’t like finding yourself in. Sometimes, other people’s insight helps you feel better and carry on with your life. Unfortunately, I have found that constant complaints only serve to accentuate the font size of your most common worries. There it is getting bolder and bolder “dissatisfied, unfulfilled, unhappy” every time you use your words to fix a problem that requires more movement and less voice.

Perhaps the most bittersweet part of life is that we are where we are meant to be in our life because it’s where we have worked up to be. The good: chances are that with hard work and dedication we can get at least one step closer to a point of fulfillment. The bad:  so many of us have been wrong about the universe being out to get us. The ugly: our complaint riddled life has been crafted by our own hands.

We’ve made an uncomfortable home where we nurture walls of fear. Fear of rejection, of neglect, of failure. We tell ourselves that this home keeps us safe from shattered dreams, while our dreams dance around our fear-riddled home waiting to be reached for. Tear the walls down; your dreams are free, unshackled. Can you say the same for your mind?

I went on a discovery mission in the all-knowing realm of wikipedia to find what many  of my fellow generationers and I have in common. A word shone out at me multiple times, narcissism. Ironic is it not that in the generation of look at me look at me the love most divested is towards ourselves? It puts in perspective the actual meaning of the word narcissism. What comes to mind is poor Narcissus who almost literally drowned in love for himself. Did Narcissus really love himself? He had an obsession with his appearance to be sure, but what he felt for himself was it really love or a simple fascination with his appearance? If you want to further delve in this greek deity’s psyche with me, one must ask, was his reflection deflection from a void within?

Let us flash forward to the lovely 21st century where according to studies many little Narcissus habituate. Could our phone be the pool equivalent? Does social media encourage our narcism? We are fascinated by what we see in the outside and what others see on our outside, but what do we see in our inside? How many of our actions are driven by what is universally best for ourselves. Society prints pretty pictures of what we want, each of us contributing to a powerful echelon of cool where we should all strive to be. Do I blame social media? Definitely not, I have found social media to be a necessary tool to create and sustain important relationships. When we partake in social media we enter a realm of people’s most personal thoughts, opinions, and experiences. How we chose to relate to or take in these thoughts, opinions, and experiences is what differentiates us from Narcissus. Narcissus became so obsessed with himself that he lost his will to live. Will our obsession with our outward image and how it differentiates from the other cyber images make us lose our will to live for ourselves? Will other people’s seemingly more interesting lives have us embark on a journey to fulfill their hopes and dreams instead of our own?

What do we want? What’s best for ourselves? Only we will know. The best url to find what is best for yourself is your heart and soul, you could scroll through and don’t have to download an app.