Life Lessons from the Little Prince

The other night I took the time to wind down after a long day, and I decided to read the French tale, "The Little Prince," better known as "Le Petit Prince," as a bedtime story. As I read out loud to my roommates, the more I began to learn from the words that jumped off the page. I had read it once in middle school while taking a "origins of language" course and once again in high school when I began studying French. This time around, I was able to see past the base plotline between the pilot and the little prince, and it opened my eyes to the true meaning of the story. It wasn't simply a narrative between the two characters meeting and the little prince's journey through space and time, but it teaches us how to love.

I discovered that we, however old or young, have a lot to learn from children. Whether you consider yourself an adult or a "grownup" or not, we need to remember our inner child. The childlike wonder that the little prince so beautifully encapsulates slowly leaves us as we age, and we need to get it back. We are letting the world around us affect us so profoundly that we forget to live and, more importantly, love. As we continue to grow up, I hope you never forget to love deeply and live intentionally.

Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince. United Kingdom, Wordsworth, 1995.