The Tadpole Within

(by Kermit The Frog)

A  excerpt from Kermit's book "One Frog Can Make a Difference"

I HEAR THAT EVERYBODY is looking for his or her inner child these days. And it makes me wonder: What's inside a frog? Is there a wild child within? A magical pollywog? A tender tadpole longing to be rediscovered, hugged, freed from the walls that block and bind its creative, spontaneous, spunky, pole-vaulting self?

I think I'm reading too many of these self-help books.

I like being who I am -- Kermit the Frog, plain, green, and simple. Besides, what if I did find that tadpole within? What if he wasn't the nice little teddy bear of an amphibian we're led to believe he is? What if he were an evil child out of a Stephen King book?

But in the interest of science, I thought I'd try to locate the little guy. So I got one of those tapes that try to relax you and bring out your inner self. It said to find a photography of yourself before you were eight years old, so I did. It's a little hard to pick me out, because there were so many of us around the pond that spring, but there I was, hanging back from the rest, swimming upstream even then.

To being my "reparenting journey" -- well, that's what the tape called it -- I sat down on my favorite log. Breathing deeply like they told me to, I ambled in my mind, over twigs, leaves, and little stones, till I came to the edge of the swamp. I watched thousands of tadpoles darting below the surface. And,suddenly, there was Tad (that's what I called my inner childe). I reached out my hand to him...to welcome him, to introduce him to a frog from his future --me.

Then I fell off the log.

That was it. I couldn't get the mood back. Anyway, I got the feeling that young Tad didn't want to hang out with me. I mean, it would take all the suspense out of life if you spent time with your future frog.