Things I have learned

I asked for help here a while back. Since then things have improved for me in lots of ways. This may not be relevant to someone else, but I decided I wanted to share the main lessons I personally got from the show.

Lesson One: Bad Things Happen (cheerful, huh?)

"The bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her" ... "We spent our days working the fields. There was no talking. There was no smiling." ... "I usually just get one present" ... "I couldn't wait to see you again. But when I came to your room the next day, you were gone" ... "A time when ponies were torn apart, by hatred" ... "We got the whole family together this time round! Who knows if they'll all be able to make the next one?"

So that's how it is. It is not a pleasant thing to learn, but it is much better than believing that bad things are all your fault, that they are a punishment for your flaws, that you should try to absolutely make sure nothing bad will ever happen again... and so on.

The important part is to remember that when something bad happens that it's just that. Something bad. Not a punishment, not destiny, not a curse, not the end of the world. It's a reason for sadness, but not for despair.

Also important: It does not mean that bad things will keep happening always and forever and that no good things will happen.

Lesson Two: You Will Fail

"That nest needs to be condemned" ... "Those outfits are the ugliest things I've ever seen, oh for shame" ... "They have never liked us and they never shall" ... "We were trying to make a table?" ... "I never won one of them races"

This one is not bad news, not really. Everybody fails in the series. Not much call for lessons otherwise.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders fail a lot, of course, but these are little kids who have no attention span, no clue, no experience, no clue, few skills and no talents that the are aware of, so that's not a a surprise.

But the first episode starts out with Celestia failing to keep her little sister from spiraling into madness and despair. I'm thinking she sees that as a failure.

Magical powers, experience, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, discipline, self-awareness, diligence, popularity, riches, a kingdom, armed guards, and good intentions-- you still screw up with things that are really important.

So you will fail. From a certain point of view you will always fail at everything because you could always have done even better. But in the end it's you who's making the judgement. Don't use standards that the most perfect magical pony princess couldn't stand up to, is what I'm saying.

"But I did get fifth place, which is rather good considering that I've never run a race before."

Lesson Three: You Need Help

"In the end, it must be you and you alone."

That's Celestia speaking, being utterly full of it.

It's something that comes up a lot the idea that you should do something by yourself because... I don't know why.

(There is a point somewhere about letting people learn something for themselves and not be too dependent, but honestly, if you take a look at the world and you say "the problem nowadays is just that people are helping each other with their difficulties way too much," maybe take another look.)

In any case, things were pretty bad for me. And at one point I decided to ask people for help. Anything, anywhere, anybody I could think of, including here. Without going into detail, things went better. Not all at once, but it's just that if you're lost you can't

Basically, my view used to be: "It's okay to ask for help if you've really, really tried everything by yourself and if it's really important and if you deserve help and can justify it and are ready to carry the debt you'll owe for that help and naturally everything you achieve with help will not count as a real success, and you should wait a good long while first to see if anyone offers help by themselves without you asking."

But really it's just plain okay to ask for help.