Oprah taught us we could achieve the dream

Some loyal fans are in a panic about the finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Wednesday, and fret that their days will never be the same.

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Some loyal fans are in a panic about the finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Wednesday, and fret that their days will never be the same.

Back in November 2009, when the hostess with the mostest announced she would end her talk show in 2011, many fans began to agonise. Who would give them their daily dose of tough love, celebrity-fawning and makeovers? How would they survive a single day without hearing Oprah’s wisdom?

I understand and respect the feeling of impending doom over Oprah’s last show. But I can say with certainty: there is happiness and fulfilment on the other side.

Back in 2008 I launched a project called Living Oprah, spending a year putting every one of Winfrey’s holistic lifestyle suggestions to the test. Before I began my experiment, I couldn’t understand why people – mainly women – put so much energy into trying to take Oprah’s advice.

But within weeks of watching her show regularly I was ensnared by her magnetic personality, her new-and-improved paths to enlightenment and her heart-warming guests.

I can honestly say, with only a bit of embarrassment, that an Oprah episode changed my life. (Don’t judge. Oprah wouldn’t like that.) Her guest was Kris Carr, a woman living – no, thriving – with cancer, who disclosed that her diagnosis inspired her to live each and every day to its fullest.

And Winfrey challenged her audience: If she can find a way to live her best life, we can, too.

O’s show promised revelation and motivation. And it delivered.

I also became addicted to the never-before-seen-on-TV secrets that would make me happier, fitter, eternally youthful and more spiritually sound.

My husband worried that I was losing my spark, my individuality. And to some extent, I was. Even though Oprah urged us to follow our own truth, I fell into step with hers. Anything Oprah told her audience to do, I did without question.

Eventually, I became eager for my year-long project to end. But when the clock struck midnight on December 31, I was surprised that I didn’t want to let her go. I’d become conditioned to needing Oprah.

For the sake of my marriage and my sanity, however, I ceased watching the show, and the O-shaped space in my heart faded away.

Instead of searching out a new guru to take Oprah’s place, I taught myself to listen to my own voice again. And frankly, that is exactly what Oprah has prodded us to do. While her show has been successful because of our addiction to it, her message has always been to fearlessly tread your own course.

And it has worked, because I know I don’t need her any longer.

Her best advice has been reflected in her own career, in her trajectory from a poor, abused, downtrodden child in Mississippi to a megawatt international superstar and empire-builder. Her talk show was thrilling because every time we turned it on, she showed us the possibility of attaining the American dream. Oprah’s teachings might not have led me to a better life, but her example has.

Oprah is a master of timing. She’s leaving on top, while we still want her and before the evolution of infotainment makes her show irrelevant. While her ratings have dropped, she still has over six million viewers a week, fifth among all syndicated network TV programmes.

We can trust Oprah’s instincts.

She knows we’ll be OK without our daily dose. After 25 years of her uplifting presence on daytime TV, we should all be able to find our own path to enlightenment, or at least a better hairstyle.

In ending her show, Oprah is like a bird kicking her chicks out of the nest so we can learn to fly. Yes, some of us will bounce painfully on the ground and others will be eaten by predators (or talk show hosts eager to fill Winfrey’s Louboutins), but most of us will spread our wings and take off on our own power. – The Washington Post

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/oprah-taught-us-we-could-achieve-the-dream-1.1072071

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