Being Oprah
By Claire Roberts

One woman shares how Oprah inspired her to make a career change--and find herself in the process.

aaaa"I've decided to give up deceiving myself and admit I want to be Oprah," my friend Rachel said. We were browsing the new fiction table at Barnes and Noble after dinner on a Wednesday night. aaaa"Oh I stopped pretending that long I ago," I replied. "I know I want to be Oprah."
	aa	aaaaWe began bearing testimony of Oprah. "She's so inspiring," we said. She embodies the American Dream. She's overcome poverty, discrimination, cellulite. She's generous. Remember the time she gave away all those cars on her show? Or the time she gave everyone in the audience free gift baskets with food and fluffy robes and bath products and those t-shirts she loves? (Okay, so maybe those gift baskets didn't all happen on the same show, but she did give those things away.) And what about all the amazing things her "Wildest Dreams" team
has done? Wouldn't we love to be part of that! She's been with the same man for years. (We can't even manage to keep a good man for one year, let alone multiple years. Are there any single men worth keeping left in the world?) She seems like a real person, like we know her. And look at the enormous influence she has. She influences women to be their best selves, to live up to their potential, to reach their dreams. aaaaWe love her. aaaaWe reverently extolled Oprah's virtues for at least 20 minutes. aaaaAlright, so maybe it was only 15. aaaaOprah also loves her job. Rachel and I at that time didn't love ours. Actually, that wasn't technically true, since Rachel had quit her job a few months before our Oprah testimony session in the book store. I was secretly in awe of her courage in doing so, when she didn't have another job lined up. At the same time, I was rolling my eyes, saying, "What took you so long?" since I knew how miserable she'd been there during the previous year. Oprah would never stand for that. aaaaI finally decided that I needed to take a page out of O, the Oprah magazine, follow Rachel's example, and leave my unfulfilling job as well. I had read enough carpe diem quotes in Oprah's magazine, enough inspirational success stories of women who took the leap of faith in life and landed firmly, enough articles about how to not put off making those big and little changes, enough of all of those to feel as empowered as I would ever be to sever the ties to the corporate vampire that sucked my life blood every day. And so, one day when personnel reassignments and vacancies were being discussed, I broke the news to my boss that I intended to leave the company when my contractual obligations were fulfilled, a few months away. aaaaNeedless to say, his response was not exuberant. aaaaHowever, after listening to my reasons, he expressed support for my decision. Phew! I thought. I finally did it! I told my boss I'm leaving. Not as bad as I expected. Now all I had to do was fill out a little paperwork and count down my days to freedom.
aaaaOh the naïveté of youth! What I didn't know at the time was that my boss was only the first in a long line of managers who, as part of the exit process, would require me to explain myself. It was as if I were arguing a case in front of various courts, as both defendant and lawyer, being perpetually referred further and further up the judicial hierarchy until an acceptable verdict could be reached--"acceptable" meaning I could be brought to my senses and dissuaded from going through with this madness. I had no idea there were so many calm and rational ways to say, "I don't like my job." Nor did I realize what a reprehensible statement that was in an organization where people devote Himalayan-sized chunks of their lives to high-pressured, crisis-driven work, because they know it's the only way to ensure the earth keeps on			aa
turning safely on its axis; only leaving the building in order to find sustenance long after the cafeteria has closed at night, and perhaps to spend a few minutes with children who greet them with "Nice to see you Daddy," as if this parent is a former neighbor they lost touch with years ago. These people then return to work in time to watch the sun come up the next morning, so that they can log onto their computers, have a contest to see who sent the email with the earliest time stamp, bask in the cutting-edge relevance of their work, and live another blissfully frenzied, caffeine-fueled day. How on earth could I want to leave that? aaaaDuring each of these "mentoring sessions" that comprised the exit interview process, I was asked what I planned to do when I "separated" from the company. (No one actually quits the company, of course, because that would mean that some work-related malaise had driven you out and you were moving on to something more stimulating and fulfilling, which simply isn't possible, as something more rewarding simply does not exist. Instead, you separate, implying that you have chosen to voluntarily remove yourself from the collective when you fell ill so as not to infect the other worker bees.) My initial replies of "I'm not sure yet" and "I'm going to take some time off" were met with raised eyebrows and not-so-subtle "I see"s. aaaaApparently that wasn't the right answer. Apparently, I should have said I had been asked to be Donald Trump's new apprentice, or that I was going to eradicate poverty and hunger in The Gambia, or marry George Clooney, or become a professional luge racer. At the very least I ought to have said I was going to work for a sprawling consulting or contracting company who would send me right back to the office I was leaving and pay me twice as much for the same work. Financial gain may not be a noble motive, but it is at least one that everyone understands. aaaaFinally, I started saying I planned to become Oprah after I left. This was not on the List of Acceptable Departure Excuses, but apparently was outlandish and novel enough that it inhibited my interlocutors from coming up with a nippy response. aaaaThat was almost a year ago, and I obviously still haven't become Oprah. Nor have I figured out exactly what I want to do with my life, or even to earn a living. Instead, I've spent my time soul-searching, writing, talking to people, surfing the Internet to see what else is out there that I might want to do. I spent time with my family, visited friends I hadn't seen in years, rode an elephant, raised money for charity, pushed myself physically beyond what I'd thought I could do, took care of new babies, learned new recipes, made a spontaneous trip to London for a Sting concert, read that stack of books by my bed, and looked into starting my own business. I didn't become Oprah, but thanks, in part, to her, I had the courage to make a change in my life, at a stage when most people are just starting to feel either settled or trapped, and as a result, I rediscovered who I am, independent of my career or my location or my daily schedule or my social network. I became reacquainted with the essence of Me. aaaaI think Oprah would be proud of that.