Cry After Watching This 90% People Cry

You may not know me, but I know you because we share something in common; we've both had to face adversity, tragedy, and challenges in our lives. How do I know? Because no one is immune. If you've achieved any number of years, you will be, or already have been faced with constant transition, challenges, and change.

Born out of these challenges is an opportunity for greatness. Everyone wants to leave a mark on the world, and everyone has something of value. We're all on a quest to find that one thing that we can finally say "Ah, that's why! That was my purpose for living."

How fortunate Oprah knew. She knew long before any of us realized what she was doing. She decided long ago her purpose was to be a teacher. Not a news reporter, or a typical talk-show host, or a superstar. She carefully wove her path of teaching by enlisting us first, as her attentive audience. After years of watching her, our trust grew, and somewhere along the way we became her loyal students.

As a little girl growing up in Monterey, California, I was often teased and called names because of my fiery red hair, white skin, and freckles. Oh, how I hated the way I looked! I often spent 6th grade lunchtime in the bathroom, hiding because one cruel boy spit in my face and bellowed, "I'd rather be dead than red!" I was bullied, and those feelings of being exposed as "different" made me cry.

Somewhere in those torturous transformational pubescent years, I found strength in dreaming of doing something unique and remarkable, even if I did have red hair. That whisper of a new path came to fruition when a musical group called Up With People toured my hometown with songs of hope, honesty, and love.

It was the time in our country when we'd just lost our beloved President, John F. Kennedy, we were in the throes of war in Vietnam, the Hippie culture preached "Free Love and Peace," and drugs seduced us into an altered state.

Up With People offered me something different. Some people thought it might have been "cult-like." For me it was my "Glee" and it was the catalyst for lighting the fire in me to perform and fueled my passion to live life with purpose.

At the age of 16, I flew to New York to audition for the national cast. I sang and danced my way around the world, and more importantly, I learned about different cultures, learned their language, involved myself in the understanding of their politics, their beliefs, and family values. Yet, through my travels, my innocent eyes were opened to oppression, prejudice, and the aftermath of war. And that realization made me cry.

We toured Italy from the north to south and played in Theaters, Opera Houses, and Piazas, and even had an audience with the Pope! We learned the entire show in Italian and found ourselves ensconced in the culture and awakened to sensory delights. Eating the food there changed my palate forever! I discovered cappuccinos long before anyone ever heard of Starbucks!



Cry After Watching This 90% People Cry by malomaat