Lessons From Beauty And The Beasts

Over the weekend I read several versions of the fairy tale Beauty And The Beast. I am rewriting the story from the perspective of the beast. What I like about this task is that I have never read the story told from the perspective of the beast, so I have some room to be creative with the story. How might you approach your work from a different perspective and mindset?

Having read so many versions of the story can create a dilemma if I allow it. In one version, Beauty’s father the merchant had three sons and three daughters, in most of the versions there were only three daughters. In one version Beauty asked for a red rose, in another she asked for a white rose. In one version, there was a mirror that Beauty could look in to see her family was doing and that’s how she noticed that her dad was ill, and in other versions, her dad wasn’t ill and there was no mirror.

In life you have many choices and it’s up to you to choose well based on your unique situation: your experience, other information that you might have access to and so on. Information is doubling rapidly and there is no way you can absorb it all. Make a choice and stick to it. If you didn’t choose well, choose again and look at potential lessons. Reading all the different versions of the story wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because I decided to stick with one version and work from there.

In my research work, I have often read many reports on one event or topic, and doing that allowed me to fill in the gaps, because of the reference point the writers decided to focus on. So what lessons have I learned, from reading Beauty And The Beast?

1. Things are seldom what they seem (a very common lesson)
2. Always try to dig beyond the surface
3. Open up yourself to new experiences
4. Put your family first
5. Be yourself! You can zig even if others are zagging (Beauty was unlike her selfish sisters)
6. Circumstances change so change with them and don’t get left behind
7. Be compassionate
8. Listen to what your heart is telling you
9. Happiness is not far away, it is within you waiting for release
10. In everything, give thanks

Buy a book of fairy tales or borrow one from the library and read the tales from the perspective of an adult. What lessons have you learned?How might you apply those lessons to your life?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment.

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