A Child's Tale Adapted for a Grown-Up (or something like that)

Everybody knows the children's story about "The Ugly Duckling" (and if you don't you should probably check it out. There's a major plot twist that this entry might spoil if you read ahead of time), but upon laying in bed last night I realized one of (I can only assume people have thought up all sorts of explanations) the hidden teachings that can come from this wonderful child's tale.

Life's not always pretty and sometimes people do crazy things and say crazy things (and not the good crazy) that do nothing but harm and detract from positivity. That's where you get the ugly duckling:

Okay that's not an ugly duckling, but seriously after google searching "ugly duckling" this little guy is what pops up and it was just too adorable to pass up posting. This is more along what I'm talking about:

It's not pretty, and face it or not, neither is being crazy. It happens though often for reasons outside of explanation. I recently had a crazy spell that was brought on by moving to a completely new place and being terrified of the fact that I didn't know anyone or even what to do with myself. Now that it has all passed it's clear just how ugly it must have looked from the perspective of my peers. Hence the ugly duckling. The teaching, or revelation if you will, comes in realizing after the fact that you learn from these occurrances and become this:

Oops, sorry. I meant this:

A beautiful soaring Swan.

The most important part to consider when transitioning from ugly duckling to swan though is this: don't allow your ugly duckling sadness to affect those around you on your way to swandom. Especially people you truly care about and enjoy the company of. There's no going back when you ruin something like that.