But we all know there was one woman who
took day time television and talk shows to a new level. Her name was
Oprah Winfrey and she had an empire that believed in YOU. Oprah
started to shift the mood and value of day time television to
programming that would usually have to be purchased in a box set of videos for 3 easy payments of $19.99. Through the power of celebrity and story telling we
started to learn about Oprah, we started to learn about others and
most importantly we started to learn about ourselves. She empowered
us to celebrate who we were and who we could be. We bought in to the
power of oneself and learnt to 'love our selves before we could love
others'. This themed programming went on for years reaching across
multiple generations and created a new sense of community. We kept
watching and kept believing because we felt good and 'me time' was
finally socially acceptable. Then, holidays were over. We went back
to school, moved on with our lives, and she eventually stopped being
on our TV's.
We may have stopped watching but we
never stopped believing. We took what TV preached and ran away with
it. From baby boomers to generations X and Y we caught the fad of
putting oneself first and united to become Generation 'O'. Across the
globe selfishness infectiously became the new cool and we rejoiced in
doing whatever made us happy. Oprah sneezed, we caught a fad and then
we spread a disease. We now see a disillusioned generation who
willingly bought in to self preservation with never allowing
themselves the opportunity of knowing how to value it. Happiness was
placed on top of the pedestal with passion for what we saw in the
mirror being the only direction to achieve first place.
I'm not saying self respect isn't
important but our society is infected with a flawed sense of
community that will ultimately destroy us. 'Me first' culture is
crippling our knowledge of our neighbours and closing the door to
societal progression. To understand passion we need to understand
compassion and to do this we need to address how we got here and
what's encouraging these values to infect others. Only doing what
makes you happy will not make you happy. We need to experience
disenchantment in all aspects of life to understand humility and
humanity. The medicine is easily administered and readily available.
Do what fulfils you, say 'hi' to your neighbour, don't look in the
mirror so much and realise the value of second place. This may not
make you happy right now nor will it be all healthy days along the way but it
will ultimately lead to a greater you and potentially a greater
society... free of Generation O.
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