PE 2/25 Oprah Winfrey Speech – Part 4

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children. It’s called “Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress –Toward.” And she says at the end, “Live not for battles won. / Live not for the-end-of-the-song. /Live in the along.” She’s saying, like Eckhart Tolle, that you have to live for the present.

You have to be in the moment. Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.

* be/live in the moment: to have full awareness of the present

ex> If you live in the moment, you will feel like your time is better spent.

But I think she’s also saying, be part of something. Don’t live for yourself alone.

* live for oneself: to live with only oneself in mind; be selfish

ex> If you live just for yourself, you will find that you are very lonely.

In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself.

* stand for: to have a guiding principle in one’s life; represent or symbolize

ex> Malcolm X once said, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”

ex> The swastika, which is the reverse of the Buddhist symbol, stands for the Nazi party.

ex> I won’t stand for such rude behavior.  (=to put up with or tolerate)

Because life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back.

* reciprocal: something that is equally felt or experienced by both sides.

ex> The deal between the two countries was reciprocal – both got something they wanted.

* give back: to return something in equal amounts to what is received

ex> After Andrew became a doctor, he returned home to give something back to his community.

PE 2/18 Oprah Winfrey Speech – Part 3

Now I want to talk a little bit about failings, because nobody’s journey is seamless or smooth.

We all stumble. We all have setbacks.

* stumble: to trip or lose one’s footing, physically or metaphorically

ex> Even the best person stumbles from time to time and says something mean.

* setbacks: obstacles or incidents that prevent one from reaching a goal

ex> Despite the early setbacks, Google became a very successful company.

If things go wrong, you hit a dead end – as you will –it’s just life’s way of saying time to change course.

* hit a dead end: to reach a point where further progress is impossible

ex> The management and the union leaders hit a dead end in their negotiations.

And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on.

* move on: to continue to something else

ex> When the grass was all gone the cows moved on to the next pasture.

If you don’t get the lesson, it shows up wearing another pair of pants – or skirt – to give you some remedial work.

* show up: to appear suddenly; attend something

ex> Woody Allen said that 80 percent of life is showing up.

"And what I've found is that difficulties come when you don’t pay attention to life’s whisper, because life always whispers to you first.

If you ask the right question – not why is this happening, but what is this here to teach me? – it puts you in the place and space to get the lesson you need."

PE 2/11 Oprah Winfrey Speech – Part 2

So, I was juggling these messages of expectation and obligation and feeling really miserable with myself.

* juggle: to try to handle multiple things at the same time

ex> some people thrive on juggling five projects at once, but not me.

So, I’d go home at night and fill up my journals about how miserable I was and frustrated. Then I’d eat my anxiety. That’s where I learned that habit.

* fill up: to use up all the space in something

ex> My mom used to get angry when I would fill up on candy right before dinner.

ex> Some artists like to fill up the entire canvas, while others leave a lot of blank space.

They said I was too emotional. I was too much.

* too much: too difficult to handle

ex> I think being a billionaire would be too much to handle for a simple girl like myself.

But since they didn’t want to pay out the contract, they put me on a talk show in Baltimore.

* pay out: to fulfill a contract’s monetary obligation

ex> Even after I finished a year at my job, my boss didn’t want to pay out the bonus.

I realized that TV could be more than just a playground, but a platform for service, for helping other people lift their lives.

* platform: a place, means, or opportunity for public expression of opinion

ex> The disc jockey used his radio show as a platform for his political ideas.

PE 2/4 Oprah Winfrey Speech – Part 1

And sometimes here in this Planet Earth school the lessons often come dressed up as detours or roadblocks. And sometimes as full-blown crises.

* detour [^|di:tʊr] : 우회로, 둘러 가는 길

ex> We had to make a detour around the flooded fields.

ex> the President detoured to Chicago for a special meeting.

* roadblock: 바리케이드, 방어벽, 장애물

ex> The city police set up roadblocks to check passing vehicles

* be dressed up as: to appear to be other than what something really is

ex> Bob’s demotion was dressed up as “an opportunity to learn new skills.”

ex> The bomb was dressed up as a birthday cake.

* full-blown: complete; total

= a full scale; a full-fledged; a complete

ex> A full-blown crisis can be avoided if we take  the proper precautions.

And the secret I've learned to getting ahead is being open to the lessons, lessons from the grandest university of all, that is, the universe itself.

* get ahead: to do better than average

ex> The people who get ahead are the people who work smartest

It’s being able to walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, ‘cause that’s really why we’re here, to evolve as human beings.

* self-improvement: making oneself better through effort

ex> Instead of trying to change others, you should focus on self-improvement.

To grow into more of ourselves, always moving to the next level of understanding, the next level of compassion and growth.

* grow into oneself: to develop as a person

ex> Some people never grow into themselves and feel lost their entire lives.

cf> grow out of something: to grow so much that some article of clothing does not fit

ex> He’s growing so fast that he grows out of his clothes all the time.