In the story of Cinderella, the glass slipper was a tool for the prince to find his ideal girl, but in real life, obsessing over an ideal and trying to fit others into that mold can lead to tragedy. Having an idealized version of yourself and others can lead to bondage, which must be overcome by the principle of non-possession.
When you think of Cinderella, you probably think of destined love or true love, whether male or female. Or you might think of a story of love that transcends class, of a heartwarming tale of defeating your stepmother and sisters. But the real Cinderella story is much more brutal than we know. As the prince searched for a woman to fit the glass slipper, her sisters would cut off the heel or even cut off parts of their feet to make the shoe fit. The story goes that Cinderella’s sisters died of blood loss as a result. You’ve probably heard stories like this before.
Everyone has their own version of Cinderella’s glass slipper. In the Cinderella story, the glass slipper was a tool for the prince to find his ideal woman. The prince doesn’t look at any other woman, but only at the one who fits into the glass slipper, his idea of the ideal. In the process, Cinderella’s sisters harm their bodies in order to become that idealized version of themselves. In the end, their greed for the prince leads them to their deaths, a tragic ending.
I don’t have a specific glass slipper in my mind, and I never will. The one person I don’t want to be like is the prince in the Cinderella story. Although Cinderella’s prince is a fictional character, people like him exist in real life. At first, they like the opposite sex, but after a while, they start to judge them through their own lens. They try to make the other person fit into their mold. They try to make the other person fit into their glass house, and usually the other person gets tired of the relationship and breaks up or gets hurt. Although the prince in the story didn’t try to project the image of Cinderella when he was looking for a new woman, it’s entirely possible that if he didn’t find her and chose another woman, he would have tried to project the image of Cinderella onto that woman. This is why I don’t want to resemble the prince. There are definitely people who try to change the other person to fit their idealized image. They try to change not only their appearance, but also their behavior and personality. This is not limited to relationships between the opposite sex, but also applies to relationships between friends or parents and children.
However, contrary to me, some people might argue that why is it a big deal to have an idealized version of yourself and match it in a relationship? They might also argue that it’s okay to have an idealized version of yourself as long as you don’t impose it on the other person. The latter argument, in particular, seems quite plausible. After all, it’s okay to have an idealized version of yourself, as long as you understand the other person. However, I would like to remind you of the monk T’ien-tzu’s ‘ Mu-so-woo. “In ‘ Possessing Nothing ‘, he writes “We acquire things out of necessity, but sometimes we become attached to them. So to have something means, on the other hand, to be attached to it. When what we acquire out of necessity becomes an uncomfortable entanglement, our purpose and motivation are subverted and we become dependent. Therefore, to have a lot of things is to be tied up in them.” In other words, we may have an idealized standard for finding the right lover, and this idealized standard may become a tool to tie us down. In other words, if you have an idealized version of yourself, you’re more likely to demand or even impose it on the other person.
Some people may read this and criticize me for having a “no ideal is ideal” standard. This is because I’ve spent the entire article talking about how it’s not okay to have an idealized version of yourself, and it might seem like I’m setting a new standard of “not having an idealized version of yourself.” But my real intention is not to set a standard of “not having an idealized person”. I’m taking a stance closer to the monk’s ‘non-possession’ mentioned earlier: I’m not looking for someone who doesn’t have an idealized version of me, but I want to practice the principle of non-possession, starting with myself. This is because I understand that living up to other people’s standards is never pleasant, and I don’t think the “glass slipper tragedy” should happen anymore.
