Happy Endings

“All this time you were pretending. So much for my happy ending.” – Avril Lavigne

Do we honestly still believe in happy endings, in this world full of so many that go the opposite way? I think about all the young people who die before their time, in house fires set by smoking parents, in the line of fire during a gang shooting, in a car driven by another young person going way too fast, or even by taking their own lives. And I am also reminded of the high number of relationships that go bad and devastate both people who had a huge stake in them, of the drug users who waste away their lives as addicts, and of the natural disasters that destroy families and their possessions, forcing them to try and recover or to completely give up. And yet, despite all of these examples to the negative, and in spite of statistics that say otherwise, I still believe in happy endings.

And you ask me why.

I remember fairy tales always started with “Once upon a time,” and inevitably ended with “And they lived happily ever after.” But they always lived in a world of make-believe where animals talked like humans and magic was evident in every corner. Of course we don’t live in a world like that, yet if you look deeper into them you’ll see what really gives them that happy ending we all seek in the real world. It’s really a combination of three different things that happen in the course of the narrative, regular happenings that we can also enjoy, that turn the story from potentially bad to wonderfully good.

1. The “bad” character makes a key assumption that turns out to be incorrect.

2. The “good” character exploits that assumption, with good results.

3. The “fringe” characters all pitch in to help the “good” character achieve his/her desired results.

Think about all of the fairy tales where this series of events is true. Stories like Beauty and the Beast, The Legend of Bluebeard, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, and Rapunzel. It’s no small wonder that Disney uses this recipe to resurrect most of those tales in its films, but also to create new fairy tales in that same mold. Because it works, and it always has, in order to achieve the desired results, those aforementioned happy endings. But how does this fit in our world?

We often make assumptions about other people in our lives, about their motivations, and about their actions. It’s the process of making these assumptions that assures us of our humanity, as it’s only natural to assume things about others, especially when we don’t know. However, once we act on those assumptions and we are more often than not proved wrong, we have done lasting damage to others and to ourselves and our own credibility. I can’t tell you the number of relationships I’ve lost because I made an assumption about the other person that proved to be wrong. How can we correct these issues? Communication. Simply put.

If we can correct those assumptions, if we communicate in our daily lives, things would be so much better. And we need to be able to rely on our friends. It’s not right to think that we can rely on only ourselves to get by, because we assume, but also because we have our own biases and issues that can be tempered by our friends and their fresh perspectives. Having that system of checks and balances, as well as having the conversations about all issues, important and otherwise, keeps those assumptions down, and clears up issues, freeing us for those happy endings we deserve.

Now, I know we can’t stop a lot of those issues that life hands out, and we can’t prevent many situations from occurring and rocking our worlds, but as long as we band together with those we love and who love us, we can still experience certain happy endings in our own personal lives.

Sam