A different Perspective

Sometimes in life thinking about the future and where it will lead us is a bit intimidating. It can be so intimidating that we may be too scared to push on and move forward. When that happens then its time to start looking at it from a different perspective. The following  excerpt allows you to do just that.It is a letter that Oprah Winfrey wrote to her 19 year old self, and it's featured in next month's 'O' magazine. She talks about her getting a job as a reporter for a news station and being nervous about balancing that and school at the same time. She also gives herself words of encouragement about accepting her past molestation by telling herself that she is beautiful. After reading it you start to take a step back and realize that everyone who is successful now has had to start from the bottom. They weren't always sure of themselves, but they never gave up. The letter is a breath of fresh air; it is simply inspirational.

Dear beautiful brown-skinned girl,

I look into your eyes and see the light and hope of myself.

In this photo you are just about to turn 20, posing outside the television station where you were recently hired as a reporter. You’re proud of yourself for getting the job, but uncertain you’ll be able to manage all your college classes before 1 and arrive at the station by 1:30 for a full day’s work. Even so, your biggest concern is how to manage your love life with Bubba. Yes, you are dating someone named Bubba.

On this day you’ve brought him to the station to see where you work, hoping he’ll be proud, too. He seems less than impressed. The truth is, he’s intimidated. You don’t know this, though, because you can see yourself only through his eyes. A lesson you will have to learn again and again: to see yourself with your own eyes, to love yourself from your own heart.

You’ve spent too many days and years trying to please others and be what they wanted you to be. You will have to learn that the wounds of your past—rape, molestation, whippings for “stepping out of place,” and not being allowed to show anger or cry afterward—damaged your self-esteem. Yet through it all, you’ve held on to a belief in God and God’s belief in you.

That will be your single greatest gift: knowing there is a power greater than yourself and trusting that Force to guide you.

The trajectory of your life changed the day you answered the call from Chris Clark, the news director at WLAC-TV. Your response was ignited by the words of your then-favorite Bible verse, Philippians 3:14. “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Knowing there is a “high calling” is what will sustain and fulfill you.

From where I sit now, viewing your journey, there are few regrets. Only months before this picture was taken, you wrote a poem about a “woman becoming.” Even then you understood that success was a process and that moving with the flow of life and not against it would be your greatest achievement.

Love you deeply,

Oprah

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