Here’s what I so love about Oprah: In yesterday’s commencement speech to the Duke University Graduating class of 2009 (where her godson-William, son of Gayle King, was graduating, and where my husband’s and my earthly goddaughter, Aria, was, also), she spoke about the very things I do here on this site. And in the same words.
Her focus, always, is on the need to take responsibility for your own happiness-in all of life, as in love-and to help others do the same. Oprah has, on each show for 25 years, people whose beginnings were not advantageous; people who got bum deals in life; people who hurt themselves and others. But always, always, there is the potential for redemption, for triumph, for success. That is why her show moves us so. That is why we love her.
“Each of us has to stand in our own shoes. Will you stand in them in humility and compassion and courage? Every day will you give you a chance to make that choice.”
And then she talked about importance of trusting your gut. “What a strange phrase to use at a graduation ceremony,” a young friend said to me afterward.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because there’s so much else to talk about,” she said, “besides your gut.”
I don’t think so, not if you get down to the….guts of it all. (And if you look back over my blogs here, you’ll find several with the very phrase, “Trust Your Gut. “) We may be smart, accomplished, and have many academic degrees. We may talk about success and goals and dreams and triumphs and faith and hope and transformation. But in all this idealism, we are faced with tough ethical dilemmas all the time, and no clear roadmaps, and I mean whether we’re on the road or in the bedroom. Your father might tell you how to handle the dilemma one way and your mother and best friend, another. You want to get a job. You want to leave a job. You want to break up with someone. You want to sleep with someone. You want so many things that suddenly aren’t so clear, that are iffy ethically. “Go For It!” is swell, but Going For It is constantly contradicted by considerations like, “Who am I going to hurt when I do?” and “What is the proper way to get it so that when I do get it, I don’t feel as if I’ve trampled on someone?” And most of all, “I know how to get what I want. But how do I get it so I feel great when I do?
There is no other way to get through the delicate web of becoming successful han to consider what it feels like inside yourself to do so.
You can get away with so much if you choose to, but it’s nobody else–not your friends, not me, your goddess, nor Oprah, who can tell you whether you sacrificed too much. It’s your gut.
“I am who I am because I trust my gut more than anyone else’s opinion,” Oprah said. “That is my best advice to you – Trust your gut. You know what is right and what is wrong. Trust your gut and stand in your own shoes and you will be a huge success.”
My darling earthly lovers, all of whom I adore and want happiness for, I could not have put it better myself.
