Fairy tales, fables, stories. Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine. These are all that come to our minds when we hear the word Happy Ending. Also, some of you might have to admit the fact that on hearing the names of each of the above princesses, you went through a quick flashback remembering the stories of each. Stories that were more than just that. They were our portals from this world to theirs, each with a moral of their own.
We’ve all heard the story of Cinderella. We know that she was a sweet, innocent girl who was treated as a maid by her step mother and her step sisters in spite of the fact that she was a princess.
We are also aware of how her life changed suddenly when she met the Prince of her dreams, falling in love with him. The Prince too had to face some troubles going from door to door asking each girl to try on the glass slipper in the hopes of finding Cinderella.
The Prince’s search finally came to an end and so did Cinderella’s miseries. They get married and lived Happily Ever After.
This is what all of us have grown up listening to. We, humans have always been mesmerized by these tales and stories so much so that we too look or search for fairytales around our lives. We too want our lives to be a fairy tale. We too want our happy endings. In fact, these tales are imbibed into our lives far deeper than we realize.
Take for instance, a soon to be newlywed couple. Every wedding day is expected to be a dream day for the bride and groom. They have to be just perfect and nothing other than perfect will do for it’s a fairy tale in making with the bride and groom getting their happily ever after as soon as they get married!
God forbid, if it is a love marriage, because this only adds to the pressure because then, there’s a back story of struggles. This makes the happy endings even more longed for.
Well, love marriage or not, nothing stops anyone from hoping for a Happily Ever After.
But is there really a happily ever after?
A girl doesn’t consider herself any lesser than Snow White or Cinderella. So, she obviously thinks that the one she’s marrying is a Prince out of the fairytales. Her wedding is the dream wedding and her portal to a happily ever after with her Prince Charming.
What she gets instead is a whole new battle which she has to fight and win! A battle of expectations, desires and disappointments. She is the sole warrior of this new fight in which she has to live up to everybody’s expectations, fulfill everybody’s demands and be ready to sacrifice her wishes for the sake of others. If she doesn’t, she is greeted with everybody’s disappointments.
A boy’s train of thoughts isn’t too different than girls nor is his condition. He too, is a Prince of his own kingdom who is supposedly getting married to the most beautiful princess of all lands, at least he wants to! Although boys are not much of the elaborate dreamy types but they certainly have a rough sketch of their new life in the corner of their minds.
But he rather finds himself in a muddle of expectations, responsibilities and very difficult choices. All of a sudden he is expected to turn into a responsible and mature man ! Suddenly, he is standing in a situation where he has to take every life decision carefully because now he has a soul dependent on him, a person who is his responsibility and whom he needs to keep happy and tend to, for he has promised her to do that.
And of course, there’s this unending fight between his wife and his mother which always puts him in such a critical position that no matter what he does or whom he chooses, he will always be hurting someone or the other!
Where’s the happy ending in either of these cases? If anything, we find out that life beyond the happy ending is not that happy as it seemed to be, that a happy ending or a happily ever after is a myth.
For some, it is, and for some, it’s just a way of living. You see, even though there are a lot of scuffles, a happy ending is not that tough as it seems to be. It is just a matter of choices.
Every husband who encourages his wife’s career takes a step ahead towards his happy ending. Every wife who chooses to love and respect her husband’s parents as her own chooses her happy ending. Every in-laws that understand that the new bride is a human being and is bound to make mistakes and not the perfect role model that everybody else expects her to be, pave their way to a happy ending.
And it’s not just about the major life decisions. It’s so much more about the choices that we make every day.
Any smile in the middle of a heated conversation in order to calm the other person down is a choice which the person makes just because he/she doesn’t want to fight anymore. An unexpected rose on an ordinary day works wonders in bringing a smile on the wife’s face!
Life’s not a bed of roses, never has been, never will be! But what we can do is work for our Happily Ever After, every single day.
If marriage is the happy ending, then:
1. Accepting the person for who they are,
2. Constant Efforts to understand each other, comfort each other, cherish each other
3. Appreciating each other’s efforts,
both by the life partners and their respective families , is the key to a Happily Ever After!
This indeed is the portal to a Happier life beyond the Happy ending!