The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose(14)
CHERYL STRAYED
One of the most important lessons I learned through the success of Wild is that if you take that risk, if you take that chance, if you tell the truest, hardest, deepest story that you have within you, you’re not going to step into the light and find that you’re there alone. You’re going to be surrounded by people who are there with you. Saying, Me too. When you take that risk, essentially you’re risking vulnerability. You’re risking showing your truest nature.
MICHAEL BERNARD BECKWITH
Potential is always bigger than the problem. Your potential is infinite and is always bigger than whatever problem you’re going through. And your life begins to be okay when you wake up in the morning, and say, I’m going to walk in the direction of my purpose. I’m going to walk in the direction of my vision. You’re being pulled more by joy. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have challenges. We’re not praying to have a challenge-free life. We’re praying that the challenges that come will activate latent potential. You begin to see, visualize, the kind of life you want to live. Begin to write it down. Begin to dream about it. And then you talk about it. It doesn’t mean you talk to everybody, because everyone is not trustworthy. You talk to selected friends. You actually talk to the vision. Talk to the possibility. Talk to love. You talk to peace. You talk to it. And then after a while, you’re talking from it.
DEVON FRANKLIN and MEAGAN GOOD
MEAGAN GOOD: When DeVon and I reconnected on the movie Jumping the Broom, I remember thinking, Wow, that’s the kind of guy I wish I could marry. He’s so amazing. Damage I accumulated from childhood and past relationships had me thinking, He’s out of my league, because of how amazing he was. At the same time, I felt God telling me, It’s time for you to focus on Me. And so I did that. I started to focus on me and on God. And in that time, I prayed more and connected to God in a deeper way. I was praying for help. I was praying for growth. I was praying for healing. I was praying for maturity. So I spent the next nine months really finding myself, because even at that time, I was making mistakes in terms of putting myself in a bad position where I wasn’t happy with the results I was getting in my life. In both relationships and emotionally, which bled over into every other area of my life. It wasn’t until a few months down the line that I got the revelation that DeVon was the man I was going to marry and, after focusing on myself and God, that I started telling friends and family that DeVon was my husband. Everyone was like, “You sound crazy.”
DEVON FRANKLIN: Now, we had not started dating. I didn’t know any of this at all.
OPRAH: So you called this in.
DEVON: She sure did.
MEAGAN: Yes. It felt like a confirmation.
JANET MOCK
JANET MOCK: When I was in second grade and we were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said I wanted to be a secretary. Because to me, from what I learned in my culture, that’s what women did. Women assisted men in their dreams. And then I went home with a note to my father from my teacher, and I thought he was going to praise me, but instead it was something like, “I think this is something you should be paying more attention to.” And that just triggered my father on so many levels. His own insecurities about his son.
OPRAH: It triggered your father because now your father recognizes, Not only do I see the femininity in my son, but now his teacher is sending me a note home.
JANET: Yes. And so everyone basically gets on board that we need to fix this. How do we get this out of this child? And so my father started lecturing me. It was my first lecture from my father about the way that I should act in the world. The way that I should be. Boys are not secretaries. Boys are football players. That’s what they do.
OPRAH: So then did you try to conform for them?
JANET: Yes, I started compromising.
OPRAH: But this is what’s amazing to me: At fifteen years old, you made a decision that you were going to go to school as a girl. You went in to school your freshman year as Charles, and by your sophomore year you were Janet.
JANET: I came back after ninth grade and I was like, I am not going to present in a way that makes anyone else comfortable. I’m going to present in a way that makes me comfortable. And so I had just been elected class treasurer, and so I stood on that stage the first day of school, our sophomore class, and I said, “Hello, everyone. I’m Janet.”
OPRAH: And did everyone just accept it?
JANET: I wouldn’t say accepted it. I think a lot of people tolerated it.
OPRAH: I think that’s pretty amazing.
JANET: I marvel at it now. At that time, it seemed like the only possibility, the only pathway.
MINDY KALING
MINDY KALING: My mother told me, “Before you can say ‘I love you,’ you need to be able to say ‘I.’” Which has been something that I have seen in my romantic relationships, my platonic relationships, my professional relationships. And that means, before you can give yourself to someone else, you need to know what you stand for.
OPRAH: Whoa.
MINDY: And anytime I have been in an unsuccessful relationship in my past, I have noticed, Oh, it’s because one of us was not able to say “I.”
OPRAH: Meaning, to stand in the “I.”