My daughter Annie and I have had a thing about frog prince tchotchkes for the past several years. It started when I needed something small and inexpensive to round out her Christmas gifts. While wandering around, I found this charming, chubby frog prince with puckered lips. I got it for her, partly because in her early years she truly wanted to be a princess, and believed she could be, and partly because it was so cute. She lugged this thing back and forth during her college years, and now it’s back in our house.

I like the image of this homely frog with a crown. To me he’s the epitome of eternal hope. In The Frog Prince a spiteful fairy put a spell on the prince, making him appear to be a frog. All it took was the kindness of another, and not even all that willing a kindness, to reveal his true nature.

Aren’t we all born under a spell? Don’t we all, to some extent, live in a world less sparkly than necessary? When the prince became a frog, he didn’t just look like one. He had to live like one (except for that talking thing). He lived in the woods in a spring. Many of us tend to live in a darkish world filled with lack, insecurity, and doubt when our true nature is one of magical possibility. The prince was lucky in that he knew the truth of himself. He was doubly lucky to know the way out from under his spell.

Most of us are not so lucky. Sure, we give lip service to knowing that we are marvelous beings with the ability to create wondrous things. But do we really know it? Seems to me the world would be a far better place than it is if we did. In a reverse frog prince sort of way, we tend to see the possibilities in others sooner than we see them in ourselves.

In the story, the frog needed the princess’ kindness to become his true prince self. Even though she did not see the truth of him and originally planned to blow him off after he returned her golden ball, she is pushed into showing him kindness. It made all the difference to him and to her as well. They did get married and live happily ever after.

 Although we’re all charged with finding our own way out from under our individual spells, it’s easier when we find help, and offer it, along the way. We may not have the princess’ power to transform another, but we certainly have enough to make a difference. There are lots of stories about how the direction of someone’s life took a radical turn for the better just by a chance comment or small act of kindness offered at the right time.

It’s unlikely that any of us will become princes or princesses, at least in the royal sense, in this lifetime. But we don’t have to live as frogs either. We can achieve a degree of happily ever after by extending kindness to others whenever possible. By taking it a step further and making the effort to recognize the wonder in others, we’ll go a long way toward seeing the same in ourselves.