By the end of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic book, we all thought that The Little Prince was lost forever, remaining only in our hearts and minds, but little did we know that our Prince would come back one day; this time, with more curiosity about life than ever.
That is the premise of Alejandro Roemmers’ The Return of the Young Prince (2017), about the character's journey through Patagonia, Argentina. Here are eight quotes from his book that'll make you rethink your life:
Fate always finds a way to make us learn the things we resist the most, the things we least want to accept.
Notice how sometimes we keep repeating the same mistake over and over, and you feel like you’re not doing it right? No matter how hard you try and whatever you, do you still end up getting hurt, or you simply do not get the outcome that you want? It’s the universe’s way of saying “I’m trying to teach you a lesson - listen to me.” It’s fate’s way of saying you’re doing it wrong again, and we are going to keep continuing with this path until you get it right. Until you finally acknowledge what fate is trying to teach you, until you accept that this is what you’re supposed to learn, things will always turn upside down. Listen to what happens to your life; it might be trying to teach you something you’ve been refusing to accept.
Humans have developed a great capacity of justifying themselves.
It’s rare that you meet a person who admits that the things happening in their lives are their fault. Their status, their job, their relationships with friends and family- it will always be someone else’s fault. Humans have always found a way to pin the blame on someone else. It could be their parents, their friends, or some unexplained incident; and they place the blame on those things, never admitting that it was always up to them to make a decision that could change the course of their lives. Humans have a defense mechanism where they always try to validate themselves and their decisions.
You can’t fail in love. The only mistake is to stop loving
Have you ever had that time where you took a minute, hit pause for a while and wondered, is it worth the risk? Is that person worth the love you can give? Did you ever second-guess what you’re feeling deep in your heart? Here’s the secret to those questions: disregard them. Put an end to it, and feel what you know you have in you. We’ve all been through an unfortunate event that made us scared and possibly even terrified of loving someone; it can make us lock our hearts up even if we already know that it screams for you to jump and give it all.
Love is the one thing in this world that couldn’t go wrong. Love, in its purest form, will always be the right thing despite the risks you take. Stopping yourself from loving is what leads to the wrong things in life because, without love, life would lose its color and become simply black and white, passive and bland. So, go ahead, love, choose to love, and choose to savor every moment. Choose to say all or nothing, because at the end of the day love is the one thing that is worth every risk.
Any change means leaving a part of ourselves behind, it’s the only way to grow and make progress.
Change is inevitable, it will always happen. There will be moments where change is the most painful thing that can happen in a person’s life, but there are also times where it is the best thing that can occur in someone’s life. Oftentimes we tend to view change as something negative because we leave a part of ourselves on things we at times do not want to let go. People fail to see that change is a phenomenon that could lead to self-improvement, to be something better, to make something out of yourself. Although we leave a part of ourselves in the past, change is what makes us look toward the future - to brighter things in the future. We let change affect us because the time will come when we take what’s essential and move forward, leaving all the excess baggage behind.
It’s strange how we easily assume that others must be going the same direction as us.
People forget that not everyone has the same goals as they do; not everyone wants money, not everyone wants to achieve power, not everyone aims to get married and have a family, not everyone goes for the ultimate goal that each one has in mind. Each and every person has their own priorities in mind, their own goals that they wish to achieve. People have their own definition of success. Assuming that everyone has the same goal as you do is like assuming that everyone will agree to what you say. Each and every person is different, each person has their own journey to take and we simply have to respect that.
We often act out of fear and mistrust, instead of letting ourselves be led by a love that we mostly repress.
The question here is, what led us to repress the love in the first place? I can name numerous incidents which could’ve led someone to these, and one includes getting our hearts broken. The pain, the betrayal, the terrified feeling of getting our hearts broken again; that’s what’s stopping people from giving all the love that they’re capable of giving. Fear and mistrust take over us as a self-defense mechanism in order to protect ourselves.
People are often scared of what love could offer them because of the thought that because of loving they ended up hurt. As was mentioned before, you can’t fail in love. People fail to see that because their vision is blurred by the pain that they felt. We have to constantly remind ourselves that the world is a good place, that there are good people out there. The world deserves a chance with the love that we’re capable of giving. So, love; love raw and unconditionally. All the love you give is bound to come back to you.
Anything imposed as an obligation will always provoke resistance.
Notice how, when you tell a teenager not to do something, they still end up doing it? This is a result of keeping children locked in demands and restricting them from what sparks their curiosity. Teenagers manage to slip right under their parent’s noses most of the time. The thing is, the more you try to tie a person down, the more they tend to pull away from you. What we need to remember is that if someone really wants to do something, they will do it wholeheartedly. As the Filipino saying goes “if you want it, there’s a way; if you don’t, there’s an excuse”. People will always find a way if they really want something to happen. Things are given freely: demanding and imposing things is setting up expectations that will only hurt you and the people around you.
The more control they exert, the less they enjoy it.
Let’s take dieting as an example. People spend a lot of money on special programs, trying every suggested type of diet in the hope of achieving the so-called perfect body that they badly want but can only result from deprivation. Watching what they eat all the time oftentimes makes them miserable. Not being able to eat what you want when you want feels terrible.
Although control and discipline are necessary in life, too much takes the fun away from life. Living with too much control in your life makes you see less of the little moments that make you happy. Sometimes all it takes in life is saying “forget it, let’s do it” and just winging it. Spontaneity sparks a fire in one’s life, and sometimes that’s all we need, that little fire in us to fuel our love of life.
These phrases are just a handful of phrases to make us rethink how we view life. A.G Roemmers’ book and The Little Princeconvey the message of loving and living life to the fullest. If you wish to learn more about the curiosities of our dearest little prince, then I suggest you get up and go to the nearest bookstore and dive into the world of The Little Prince and his journey here on Earth.
All illustrations via @lepetitprinceofficiel
