Oprah Giving This Poor Girl Terrible Advice is Everything Wrong With Our Culture
“The highest honor you will ever have is the honor of being yourself.”
Wednesday morning, talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey gave a 14-year-old girl terrible advice on Good Morning America.
As ABC explained it:
Winfrey, 64, spoke about finding one’s inner compass in response to a question from a 14-year-old girl who asked her advice for young girls who want to make a difference in the world.
The girl, Taylor Richardson, has raised $50,000 to send other girls to see Winfrey’s new film, “A Wrinkle in Time,” in movie theaters.
Winfrey, who pledged to match the $50,000 Richardson has raised, said her advice to young girls rings true no matter their race or background.
Watch:
.@Oprah Winfrey gave advice to a young audience member this morning and it’s all the #WednesdayWisdom we need! https://t.co/rD0dWF7zaL. pic.twitter.com/pLyfanYPmo
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 7, 2018
Or the transcript if you prefer:
“The highest honor you will ever have is the honor of being yourself. And your only job in the world is to figure out…people think your job is to get up and go raise money and take care of your family — that’s an obligation that you have, but your only true job as a human being is to discover why you came — why you are here. Every one of us has an internal guidance, a GPS, an intuition, a heart print, a heart song that speaks to us. Your only job is to be able to listen and discern when it’s speaking versus your head and your personality speaking. And if you follow that, you will be led to the highest good for you. Always.”
With all the good she’s done, and as hard as she’s worked, I imagine Oprah was completely sincere and truly meant well. Buuuuut, nothing she suggested is helpful for a 14-year-old yet to meet the trials and tribulations of adulthood, much less adolescence, nor does her advice encourage the virtues and sacrifice required to be a successful adult.
“Follow your dreams” or in this case “your internal guidance” is terrible career advice. Sure, she touches on the obligation of making money, but what 14-year-old will make that distinction? Especially engulfed in a culture of selfish entitlement?
Encouraging kids to follow their dreams instead of chasing opportunity only sets them up for failure, disappointment, and an unnecessarily rough road ahead. “Following your dreams” may be possible, but no one ever talks about the amount of work and sacrifice required to make a dream reality.
And in a world where college grads are saddled with copious amounts of debt all for a worthless degree, there is an even greater chance following any dream will be anything more than a fool’s errand.
Mike Rowe, the former host of Dirty Jobs and unofficial spokesman for skilled and trade workers, offers great advice, “Don’t follow your passion, but take your passion with you.” It’s advice that’s far more beneficial than “your only job is to be you.”
Next is the issue is the perpetuation of the myth that everyone is destined for greatness and capable of single-handedly changing the world. It’s simply not true.
Not everyone is on the fast track to immortalization. Not everyone will be remembered by generations to come, and that’s OK.
Humility, the desire to quietly do good, the drive to take care of one’s family and community — those were once indicative of living your best life.
Ronald Reagan canonized the idea that “all great change begins at the dinner table.” And he’s still right. What good is changing the world if you fail to do your best for the people in your life?
The notion that EVERYONE who ever has/will walk this planet is intrinsically outstanding/remarkable & destined for unbridled greatness is just another line of faux inspirational BS that kids are being fed. The whole “follow your bliss & find yourself” advice is ruining them.
— Ashley Johnson (@toothcriminal) March 7, 2018
And a great story:
It is absolutely okay to be mundane, to be ordinary, to achieve nothing “big” in the eyes of the world, but if you’ve been a positive influence to the people close to you in life, if you’ve helped others within arms’ reach, then it’s absolutely ayokay.
— ❤ Jayvie ❤ (@OneFineJay) March 7, 2018
My mother? Did nothing world-changing, but she: put three of her three kids through college; the three Philippine-based grandkids through college; provided in-home child care for her five Stateside grandkids; been a fount of wisdom and inspiration and love for our family…
— ❤ Jayvie ❤ (@OneFineJay) March 7, 2018
She had no time nor means to follow her “dreams,” but she sure af made our reality so much better. And now she’s retired, and she’s living in her own house back home, and yes: she did nothing big or fame-worthy, but that woman is greater in my life than Oprah ever will.
— ❤ Jayvie ❤ (@OneFineJay) March 7, 2018
As long as you are better today than you were yesterday, serving others, taking responsibility for yourself & your family, that is a life well lived. We used to know this.
— Pray For Israel (@athelass) March 7, 2018
And then “we all” decided that being known for being known was a thing.
— ❤ Jayvie ❤ (@OneFineJay) March 7, 2018
And the money shot:
When people stop worshiping God they worship themselves.
— Pray For Israel (@athelass) March 7, 2018
Lastly, there is nothing in Oprah’s advice that speaks of service or sacrifice. Love is nothing if not sacrifice and selflessness. And what is a life without love?
While I believe Oprah’s advice was well-intentioned, it’s not helpful.
Love, not self, is our highest calling and honor.
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Comments
It may be that the purpose of your life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
Yeah, I’m looking at YOU, Lena Dunham!
Everybody is an example. Some positive, some negative.
True, but some people have trouble telling which is which.
Didn’t Oprah’s father disown her some years back?
Or was it the other way around?
I thought I had read about that in the past.
“Oprah Winfrey ‘Stunned’ About Father’s Book Plans”
Oprah Winfrey says she is “stunned” to learn her father plans to write a book about her.
Speaking to the New York Daily News, the talk show hostess says she initially laughed when an assistant told her the newspaper was inquiring about a book her father, Vernon Winfrey, planned to write about her. Upon calling him, she learned it was true.
Winfrey said the worst part of the discovery was hearing him say he’d forgotten to tell her about his plans.
Winfrey was a young teenager living with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she was sent to live with her father in Nashville.
She has credited him with imposing order on her life through discipline and insistence she get an education. The Daily News says Vernon Winfrey plans to title his book “Things Unspoken.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-05-23-voa45-66715147/560124.html
Good Lord! No wonder the country is so messed up!
So…. you think she’d say that to people on the alt-right? Centipedes on The_Donald? Posters here?
Members of the KKK could say they’re just being themselves. The Hutus were just ‘being themselves’ when they took their machetes to the local Tutsi gathering.
“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” — Judges 21:25
When people stop worshiping God they worship themselves.
That’s the “money shot”?
Sounds like somebody needs a good dose of Allahu Akbar! That’ll set the world to rights, for sure.
She wasn’t speaking too this young girl, she was speaking to an adult audience, one that thinks Oprah walks on water. Hey, Doprah, the next time you think you have perfect things to say to young women, try walking on water.
A little humility goes a long way.
The correct advice is “No task is beneath you, always do lend a hand to those in your life today and bloom where you are planted.”
Or the redneck version – “everyone dies famous in a small town…. but it’s up to you what you’ll be famous for?”
As I tell my son, “if you want self-esteem, perform esteemable acts.” Not much more complicated than that.
Everyone initially deserves courtesy, respect is earned. Go earn it.
No! No! It’s MY turn!!!!!!
This is hilarious:
Hillary Clinton’s “What Happened” Book – It Was My Turn
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1279145-hillary-clintons-what-happened-book
To change topic a bit. Wasn’t A Wrinkle in Time released a while ago. Was it such a bust that they are pretending it wasn’t released and rereleasing hoping to fool people this time around?
My fealing is that they are just doubling down on Madaline L’Engle’s expectations of the first movie.
There was a made-for-TV movie in 2003. The current movie is new and has not been released before. In fact, the release date was moved up from April to March.
I’ve read better advice on greeting cards, including the sympathy ones.
What empty humanistic dribble
Who was playing basketball?
Also: A fourteen-year-old child’s passions are likely to be built on ignorance and emotion. When (of if, in these decadent days) the child grows up those passions will be replaced by more mature ones. A child should not be setting out to Change the World, which implies that the child has any clear understanding of the world. Instead, the child should be seeking to learn as much as possible. Who knows, the child may eventually discover that the world is not in such great need of changing as he or she thought. But such advice would not sit well with someone like Oprah.
The narcissist-dependency-voteforpelosi factory at work.
The antidote:
“Dr. Jordan Peterson: My Message to Millenials: How to Change the World — Properly”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOeO_frzvg
“She wasn’t speaking too this young girl, she was speaking to an adult audience, one that thinks Oprah walks on water.”
That would fit her reputation for doing/saying things likely to boost or maintain high viewer numbers, regardless of whether they are harmful to her guests or those who listen to her.
Don’t know about’walking’ on water, but you can be sure oprah can float – even with Stedman on her back.
Ray Dawn Chong: Oprah’s ugly and insecure:
“In a recent radio interview, Chong launched an astonishing attack on the world’s favourite talk show host, claiming that Oprah was a “total b***h”.
https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/oprahs-ugly-and-insecure-says-actress-1550496
If you like Peterson (and have the patience to sort through the amazing amount of material he speaks of in such short periods of time) you’ll love this:
Jordan B. Peterson on 12 Rules for Life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5RCmu-HuTg
The book is even better:
Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos:”
https://www.amazon.com/12-Rules-Life-Antidote-Chaos/dp/0345816021/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520480840&sr=8-1&keywords=jordan+peterson
Big fan of Peterson and this video is one of my go-tos. Should’ve included it in the post.
If Oprah had given and taken her self the advice she gave the 14-year-old girl, she would not be Oprah.
If Oprah had taken her own 14-year old self’s advice, then she would probably have dropped out of H.S. (per Oprah’s own words).
“She has credited him (her father) with imposing order on her life through discipline and insistence she get an education.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-05-23-voa45-66715147/560124.html
This advice seems like a recipe for overweening narcissism.
That’s the plan.
Jordan Peterson – How Narcissistic Psychopaths Fool You:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djEKllJJukk
HARD to argue for Marxism after this… Dr. Jordan Peterson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6RGyfbJSr0
On maxine waters? — Jordan Peterson: what does it mean to have an IQ less than 83:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kVFYzmigx0
Now I know where my college’s “diversity and inclusion” office got some of its drivel for a series of patronizing posters hung around campus.
“See Something, Say Something”…..
End up being Nothing?
“Don’t follow your passion, but take your passion with you.”
An acquaintance of mine who ended up drifting into working personal security and has made quite a good career of it likes to say “I’m not good at my job because I like it. I like it because I’m good at it.”
I would worry far less about being a success in this materialistic world and far more about how I behaved in God’s world and in meeting God’s directions. Oprah has such an arrogance about what we can do in the absence of God and fails to understand that we are nothing without Him. Humility and thankfulness is simply absent anymore.
Oprah has fallen far from the time that she recognized God Almighty.
Nickolas Cruz said something to the effect of, “I want to be the best school shooter I can be.”
According to Ms. Winfrey, Mr. Cruz reached his highest good and we need to celebrate it.
Oafrah is a pseudo-intellectual douchebag.
Oprah – “Follow your heart!”
Jesus – “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” (Mat 15:19-20 ESV)
I bet the church she goes to, if she goes at all, is to this one …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4QFKS4LzS4
Kith and kin to the age-old advice that one who decides to be his own lawyer has a fool for a client.
Like handful of little sprouts from newly-planted acorns, measuring themselves among themselves and by their own view of their self-esteemed personal stature. They come away from that exercise smugly satisfied with what they are, ever doomed to miss the higher standard and goal which they might pursue– the mighty oak they were created to be.