Happy Living & ‘The Cinderella Complex’!
gopimenon February 4th, 2010
Hi There,
When I talk of ‘The Cinderella Complex’ as it pertains to Happy Living, I am NOT referring to that which was described by Colette Dowling - who wrote a book on women’s fear of independence, as an unconscious desire to be taken care of by others, based primarily on a fear of being independent.
Neither am I referring to ‘Cinderella’s Syndrome’ as first named by Dr. Peter K. Lewin in 1976, in a letter to the editor of Canadian Medical Association Journal. It describes false accusation by adopted children of being mistreated or neglected by their adoptive mothers.
The above are referring to individual cases. However, I am talking about the whole world suffering from a set of beliefs that I call ‘Cinderella Complex’ for reasons that will become clear in this post.
In the fairy tale of Cinderella, we are told of a ‘good’ person (Cinderella) suffering unjustly but patiently from the wicked Stepmother and her daughters. Her only help is from a Fairy Godmother who helps her go to the ball and find her a Prince Charming who then finally sets her free and they live happily ever after!
Just analyze some of the beliefs that we are fostering on our children with that tale:
- The good people have to Suffer with Patience and Forbearance whatever injustice they are forced to endure. (Therefore expect to suffer if you are a good person!)
- They do NOT have any power to help themselves – they have to wait for an external Savior (Fairy Godmother) or a Hero (Prince Charming) to save them.
- The world is separated into 2 clear cut Parts – Evil & Good (with no gray areas in between).
These are the same kind of beliefs that all human beings are taught as children – by our parents, our school teachers and our religious teachers, by our movies and books etc.
- We are powerless as human beings in this world – we are at the mercy of Fate, the Devil, and other Evildoers
- All we can do is pray for a savior or a hero to help us – and if we pray hard enough and suffer long enough, the hero or savior will appear and save us from our troubles!
But how true are these beliefs? How many cases do we know of ‘good’ people being saved from their ‘suffering’ by the appearance of a savior?
In real life, it is we ourselves who have the power to alter our ‘fate’ and design our own destiny! This is what all the success stories of the world shows – the rags to riches stories (there was never any Fairy Godmother) who magically lifted them out of poverty!
The struggling inventors, writers, poets, painters, entrepreneurs etc all achieved their successes by their own belief in their dreams and the hard work they put in, and their persistence. Sometimes the Universe helped them by ‘synchronistic’ events that were actually brought about by their own diligence and strong belief in success! But by and large, there was NO White Knights to slay the dragons and save them!
Unfortunately, since we are all brainwashed into accepting the ‘Cinderella Complex’ from early age, most of us find it difficult to break away from such negative and self defeating beliefs! Many of us still cry out in prayer, do fasts & penances, give offerings etc in the hope that we can bribe or extort some help from the Gods!
We fail to realize that the Creator has already given us the power to design our own lives; we don’t have to stoop to try and appease or please God in all the silly ways we have been taught to do!
The Creator would be well pleased with us if only we were to exploit fully the talents that we have been born with – by ‘not hiding our light under the bushel’! To do that we must become aware of what it is that we truly desire to do with our lives and then go for it confidently!
The unchanging and neutral Laws of the Universe and the Laws of Mind will provide the synchronicity required to ensure that we succeed. All we need is to understand some of these basic principles (see World According to Gopi & Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen – Part 2)
Unfortunately, this idea of a special Hero with super-powers has been around for ages (e.g. Samson, Ulysses, Hercules etc.) and is even now being echoed in the Movies! A whole village is under the control of an evil leader and only the appearance of a hero from outside can help to overcome the villain!
This is true for both Western movies (think ‘Magnificent Seven’, ‘Shane’, Zorro, etc. etc.) as well as Eastern movies. The vast majority of Indian movies exploit this theme to the nth degree – one unarmed ‘super hero’ overcomes dozens of gangsters while hundreds of villagers watch! I used to wonder “Why doesn’t any of the hundreds of onlookers do something when atrocities are being committed by a dozen thugs?” If only they were to take concerted action together, they could easily end the suffering and the humiliation! Instead they stand around just looking (even when the one hero is fighting tremendous odds) – because they all suffer from the Cinderella Complex!
Like the case of a baby elephant which is tethered with a strong rope or chain and finding itself unable to break free, finally decides that it CANNOT break free, so that even when it is grown to be a 3 ton giant, it can still be held in place by a small chain. Because it has forgotten its own powers. So too the men and women suffering from the Cinderella Complex have forgotten or given up their own powers and now prefer to remain at the mercy of others!
Thus let us remember that the Cinderella Story is just that – a fairy tale and is NOT representative of real life! If we want to experience a happy life, we should just go out and create it for ourselves, believing that we do have the power to do so! Let us not wait for a White Knight, a Hero or a Fairy Godmother to alter our lives for the better.
Expect Happiness!
