Tamed

The Little Prince is a children's book, but contains many true principles. At one point, the little prince meets a fox he wants to play with.

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

After the little prince asks the fox several times what this means, to be "tamed," the fox replies, "It means to establish ties. To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world."

Later on in the discussion, the fox says, "One only understands the things that one tames."

And when the little prince asks the fox how he can tame him, the fox replies, "You must be very patient."



Although I believe this story refers to all relationships, I thought it went very well with our Relief Society lesson today, in which the lesson was based off the following quote by Elder F. Burton Howard in his talk on eternal marriage:

"If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don't expose it to the elements. You don't make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and more precious as time goes by."