Ogres are like onions. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers, but do you know what else has layers? People.

When I was watching Shrek as a little girl I never understood what they meant by ogres are like onions. You can’t peel them, they probably do stink, but ogres aren’t vegetables. What did they really mean by “layers”? I didn’t quite see the bigger picture.

Ogres are big, scary creatures. The whole town of Dulac was terrified of Shrek. They wanted to run him off because of the evil they thought that Shrek would do but in reality he acted like he wanted to be alone. Every time the townsmen would come up and try to run him off he had to act like he was some scary creature that was going to eat them and crush their bones. He would never hurt them because that wasn’t his intention. The whole town had this idea of him because they saw what he looked like on the outside and saw that he was different. He wasn’t like the rest of them.

Shrek eventually believed that he was scary and didn’t want anybody to be around him because of what the people of Dulac portrayed him as. Once someone tells you the same thing over and over again it comes to a point where you stop trying to convince him or her otherwise and you just go with it. That’s exactly what Shrek did.

As you keep watching the movie, you realize that Shrek wanted love and a family just like everyone else does but he didn’t know where to find it or if it even existed. All it took was a mission and a good friend to help him find himself.

Just like Shrek, we have layers as people. We get so wrapped up in our layers it makes us afraid of our true feelings. We develop a new layer every time we don’t want to show what’s in the core, but the core is the most beautiful part.

Who you really are as an individual is the best thing you can become. Finding happiness within ourselves is the best thing we can do. We need to show our layers, show who we really are. The layers that we have are what makes us who we are. It shows what we have been through. It shows what feelings we have and hide what feelings we don’t want people to see with another layer. If we peel them back we will see everything about a person: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In our world we see the outer layer when it is really the inner layers that matter the most. Maybe we need to go back and look at those layers to see where that happiness really is hiding. Just like Shrek we need realize that who we really are is who we really need to be. It’s where we will find happiness. Our happily ever after.