El Principito

The Little Prince

Finding what you truly desire is so hard to come by. The perfect pair of shoes, the top that fits you perfectly, and the job that will make you the most money are trivial to what is actually essential in life. So many people are searching for the things they feel are indispensable to living a happy life, sometimes forgetting what they really need. In the Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, the little prince points out, "People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for..." "They don't find it," I answered. "And yet what they're looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water..." "Of course," I answered. And the little prince added, "But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart" (71). As the narrator pulls the water up out of the well, and the pulley seems to sing to the little prince, the narrator realizes what the little prince was looking for by their journey through the desert. The little prince didn’t need to quench his thirst, nor did he enjoy walking through the hot desert, he enjoyed the company and the occasion in which they walked together. The saunter they had, the song of the pulley, the effort to get the water was what the prince considered a gift. The experience of friendship and bonding is what the little prince had been looking for the entire time. The narrator, like most people, had to realize that individual tasks do not led to happiness in life, it’s all the moments as a whole, shared with family and friends that is one gift to one another. In life looking vaguely for what one sees is happiness is not uncommon. Feeling as though a hundred acquaintances are better than two close friends, or attending fine affairs where you are inconsequential are more important than personal birthdays at home. As the little prince states, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they'...

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