Dear Princess Celestia,
Sometimes admitting you need help takes a different kind of bravery and humility that is often hard for people (and ponies) to swallow. It can cause great strife when people do not allow themselves to accept that they are not able to do everything on their own. The remedy for this, fortunately, is receiving tough love and a few nudges in the right direction from friends.
In season one episode six of “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,” Applejack, the tough, loyal, and sometimes hard-headed farmer earth pony, learns this lesson through many failed attempts at keeping track of her responsibilities all by herself.
At the beginning of the episode, she makes a wild bet to her brother, Big Mac, that she can buck all of the apples on her family’s orchard in time for harvest by herself. Immediately following this, she makes a grand gesture of saving the town from a stampede of cows.
Due to her bravery, the mayor bestows a medal on her for her contribution to the safety of the town. Twilight Sparkle then makes an introductory speech and is constantly interrupted as the rest of her friends cheerfully interject with their own stories of how Applejack plans on helping them that week.
Rainbow Dash proudly boasts of how awesome it will be when Applejack helps her with her new flying trick, Pinkie Pie excitedly shares that she is also helping her bake at Sugar Cube Corner, and Fluttershy humbly explains that Applejack is helping her count up and gather all of the new baby bunnies.
While attempting to keep her bet, Applejack takes the stage and accepts the award while fighting sleep, wobbling about drunkenly and causing Twilight to grow concerned. After continuously denying Twilight’s help, she then goes about the activities she promised her friends she would help them with in the same drunken way, causing disaster.
She finally accepts defeat once she realizes that despite all of her effort and the chaos ensued by it, she was only halfway done with bucking the apples. She ultimately puts her stubborn pride aside and fights back tears as she asks Twilight for her help. In the end, with the help of all her friends, she can buck all of the apples just in time.
Sometimes people might bite off more than they can chew, but learning to be humble and open to getting support from friends can lead to the impossible becoming possible.
From your faithful students.
