Little Red and the Sleeping Beaut

So I've watched the same two Chinese versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty about 6 times or more each this past week (not completely by choice: it happens when you teach a Chinese 6 year old English). I've learned quite a few life lessons as well as some Chinese (subtitles) from those shows and I actually look forward to watching them each time so I can be reminded of what I learn. At one point in Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red comes upon a bird on her way to Grandma's. The bird is injured so, naturally, she mends the wing with raspberry jam. She tells the bird he's better and to fly, but he can't. She comes to the conclusion that it's not his wing at all (maybe at this point it's the jam), but his head that is keeping him from flying. She tells him that when he's afraid of something he should learn not to be afraid of it and face it and overcome it. Later, after the wolf almost ate her and Grandma, the narrator reviews the lessons Red learned; one being that we should always be on the lookout for people pretending to be something they're not. I thought that was interesting. Should Little Red be on the lookout for me?
Sleeping Beauty starts out with a song talking about love. Some paths are paved with gold, some are curved and narrow, some are hard to find, some are straight as arrows. When it feels like true love, it's getting much too hard to find...Something to that effect. Because I usually watch the two movies consecutively I linked some ideas: People pretend to be something they're not, our heads keep us from flying, and true love is getting too hard to find; Food for thought. We know the story of Sleeping Beauty: she pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep and a Prince comes to rescue her. I can't quite remember the other versions, but in this version the Prince has to cross a bottomless pit, defeat a giant without falling into the pit, overcome thorns around a castle, scare away bats, stop his heart from turning to stone due to an evil fairy, and kiss the princess. He, of course, has been dreaming about the princess since he was a boy and so that's why he's there in the first place. Overcomes the pit with pure intellect. Overcomes the giant with advice from the fairy's voice and what he remembers from his dreams during his childhood. Overcomes the bats with fire that is already in the castle. Overcomes the stone by using his own strength/love as well as the fairy (the voice) herself. And then of course he uses his own free will to kiss the princess. And they live happily ever after.

So maybe I haven't finished connecting everything yet, but I think what I took from these movies are this: it helps to have a dream and it helps to be aware of your surroundings. It helps to listen to the voice inside you, and have a strong will. It helps to not let your mind make you afraid (this also reminded me of a TED talk I watched find the link here), and it helps to be real and not pretend to be something else.
Do I do/have those things? And do I have a goal where I search my whole life to find and obtain it? Do I even have a goal of finding someone who doesn't just make me happy forever because I'm with them and because I just sat and waited my whole life for them and now I'm just glad to not be alone, but who I would give anything and everything for: my own life if necessary, who I would search for and prepare my whole life for? And that's what makes me happy is being there for them right when they needed it - to help them wake up - and to serve them and be by their side forever.
Definitely some spiritual and temporal parallels I'd say.
Hmm...I never knew I could learn so much from some Chinese/English classic children's stories and slightly cheesy ones at that and maybe I took it too far haha, but I have a lot of thinking to do when my only friend is 6 year old who doesn't know English and I don't know Chinese.

You know I think I fear never finding love, but I think sometimes I fear more that I'll find it and then I won't know what to do and I'll pass it up. I think it's human to have fears about love. Either way, I think the only way to overcome this fear is start searching for love and making a plan for it...and then I'll work on the latter problem when I find it.