OK, since I seem to be slipping up a bit on getting the rest of this issue blogged (oh, it’s been read for a couple of days, but I can’t get around to blogging it), I’m going to do a recap of what I thought of the last half of the magazine:

• It makes me laugh to see all the recommended stuff on The O List, and then on the next page, there starts another round of “here’s more stuff to buy, even if it’s not on Oprah’s list.” It’s the style section, and it’s got this headline, “Look What We Found!” which made me wonder, did they really find it, or did they just have a lot of x on hand and decided to write about it. I don’t know how magazines work, and I’m curious. Besides, you just got through what Oprah found….do you have to get through what the staff found too?
• There’s an interesting, humorous article on body image that suggests instead of the BMI, using the PBII (Personal Body Image Index) which recommends gauging yourself on how you feel. The purpose is really to help you get over your hang-ups and enjoy your body as it is at the moment. If you’re relatively thin, yet think you’re fat, 30 years down the road, you might look at yourself and marvel at how thin you were back then. And what did you think back then? You were unhappy with yourself. An interesting concept–another way to try to live in the moment.
• Books of Summer? I have too many on my shelf to get into the new books of summer (except the David Sedaris. I’m reading that one right now).
• “Men! What Are You Thinking?!” The themed section is a group of eight short articles written by men in an attempt to explain themselves. There’s the FAQs (“What do you like most about us?”), the crazy things men think up, what they think of fatherhood, men secrets (“Sometimes we don’t open up because we are afraid of what we will find.”), men’s war stories, men and violence, how men and women differ, men and dancing. While they’re somewhat interesting, I couldn’t help but think the articles said what men wanted us to hear. I think I get more about men when I read Esquire.
• There’s an article about 54 ways to say no–mostly it’s in specific situations (dinner companions asking for a bite of your meal, social hugs, etc.). They’re pretty decent. What I didn’t expect was the companion piece, “The Year of Saying Yes!” by Patricia Volk, who I just adore. Hooray! Patricia was apparently good at saying no, and her friend accuses her of not really pushing the boundaries of life, not really living. So Patricia decides to say yes to every offer that comes up, like introducing a film at a film festival, teaching writing for a semester, going on a blind date. By the end of the article she doesn’t regret saying yes to anything she’s said yes to. “The change has to do with the joy of being available to chance. There is a thrilling difference between being comfortable and being too comfortable.” Well said, Ms. Vollk, and with your usual wonderful writing style. Did I mention that I love this writer’s O articles? One of these days I’ll have to read her books.
• Helicopter parents. This is one of those phenomenon that I do not understand. Why do you want to be that wrapped up in your child’s life that you do basically everything for them? The article said it was a rebellion from Gen X latchkey kids, but I don’t really think so. I think it’s easier to live vicariously through someone else’s life rather than make your own. A lot of women have bought into this competitive parenting, and the results aren’t going to be good (although I didn’t have a helicopter mother, I was told what to do on certain occasions when it would have been more beneficial to allow me to explore and do the work myself. I see that now that I’m an adult.)
• What does Oprah know for sure? She’s still excited about her decision to choose Eckhardt Tolle’s book A New Earth for her book club/class experience. She’s excited that people are living more in the moment (or say they’re living more in the moment) and experiencing more spirituality because of it.
• What does Jill know for sure? Well, I’m glad to be finished with another issue. I’m still trying to get a better balance of how to do this blog. Does one big entry like this work? Or would it be better to separate this a bit more? I’ll keep playing with it, but it’s certainly a relief to be done blogging this issue in one fell swoop!

August 2008 is “True Life Stories,” so I’ll read it, then go back to these other men issues. Onward!

UPDATED TO ADD:  A half-hour after I posted this, I realized the July 2008 issue doesn’t have an O Interview in it!  There doesn’t seem to be one in the August 2008 issue either?  This is definitely odd.  I wonder if there’s a reason, or if this is just a little vacation and it’s happened before.  Anyone know?

Well, I’ve wrapped up another issue (yippee!!!!). I’m not doing a separate “What Oprah Knows For Sure” entry because Oprah doesn’t talk about beauty in the beauty issue. Maybe Oprah feels ugly. Maybe she doesn’t feel like she knows something about beauty for sure. What she does know is that when she was in Krakow visiting Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel, she realized that all of life is extraordinary. “There are no ordinary moments.” The whole Auschwitz experience made her feel sad for the Holocaust but also made her happy and long to be alive.

Beautiful thoughts, yes, but it was a bit of a jolt to read them at the end of the Beauty issue. I liked the fact that the magazine tried to get you to change your thinking about beauty without the pat stories about beauty being from within. It was a very non-cliched issue that opened up my eyes to the way we’ve been conditioned to think about beauty and to think about how beautiful or not beautiful we are.

I remember when I was high school age, I used to sit and look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I was beautiful and some guy would eventually see that and think I was beautiful. I went to a school with a lot of Dutch people, many of whom had blond hair and blue eyes. I looked a little bit different–not overly so, but I wasn’t a looker. Telling myself I was pretty though I think had a decent effect on me because I don’t really buy into the idea that a serum will make me look better–maybe it will enhance my already stunning beauty, but it’s not going to cure anything.

Like many women, I’ve been able to beat myself up about who I am or am not. I compare myself to others all too often, and I focus on that stupidity rather than become excellent on my own. Accepting my own beauty is at least was step in the right direction of being a better person.

I’ll be interested to see how Oprah’s “What I Know For Sure” columns vary when the theme of the issue is the same.  Will it be a repeat?  Will her views change over time?  We’ll find out when I go backwards to look at the other beauty issue.

This time though, she thinks she’s figured out that beauty is not her.  That may not make sense, but she says that your spirit and personality are not your body.  Mostly she’s talking about her endless struggle with weight and the guilt and frustration she’s had in trying to control it.

She includes a long quote by Marianne Williamson, a spiritual teacher, which ends, “In order to lose weight on a permanent basis, you want a shift in your belief about who and what you are.  This is the miracle you seek.”

The interesting thing here is that Oprah equates beauty with body image, and to that end, being thin.  Yes, body image is part of it, and I understand that the “beauty revolution” going on at O this month is to think differently about our bodies, but body image isn’t always a fat/thin issue.

Still, I’m guessing that if you don’t like your nose, if you shift a belief about it, maybe you’ll be able to like that too.

One of the questions I had about reading every issue of O was that would things start repeating.  You see it in other magazines–every year there seem to be stories on the same topics.  I wondered if this magazine would do the same thing (especially if themes are repeated).

The answer is yes, and I’ve found my first example in the “Success” issue’s “What I Know for Sure” column.  I started it thinking, I’ve read this story about Oprah making $20,000 when she was 20 and thinking it would be great if she was making $40,000 at 40.  I’ve read the “God can dream a bigger dream for you than you could ever dream for yourself,” line before.  So will this column tell me anything new?

Luckily, it does.  She uses a line from her friend, the gospel singer and minister Wintley Phipps, who once told Oprah, “The key is not to worry about being successful but to instead work toward being significant–and the success will naturally follow.”  If you tell yourself to serve instead of saying that you want to be successful, then your work has more meaning.

Oprah talks about being financially successful and how our culture equates success with money.  That’s not the real definition though.  “Real success means creating a life of meaning through service that fulfills your reason for being here.”

It’s a cool concept–and actually one that takes the pressure off.  If you’re constantly trying to be successful and you don’t get there, you beat yourself up.  But if you’re trying to be of service, doors may open that will help you.  Something to think about–does my writing help others?  Does it entertain?  Maybe make you think or laugh (well, maybe not too much laughing with this blog–I attempt humor at my other site)?  I hope so.  And I’ll continue to try to be better at it.

In the last column of the self-esteem issue (March 2001), Oprah tells a story from her childhood when she went way over the top on a book report, and was publicly acknowledged in class by her teacher.  The teacher went on to say that everyone should put in as much effort as Oprah did.  Needless to say, the kids in the class weren’t happy with Oprah and taunted her for a bit, saying things like, “She thinks she’s so smart.”

Oprah writes that this kind of behavior followed her through adulthood, and she felt like she had to appease others, even if it meant she lost that inner glow you get from doing a good job.  She eventually decided (apparently in the late 1990s) to “stop apologizing for my accomplishments.  I came to realize that there’s no way to satisfy such critics.  People who don’t feel great about themselves feel even worse when those around them do well.  When they say, ‘Who does she think she is?’ what they really mean is ‘How dare she exceed my expectations of who I think she should be?’”

It’s interesting to think of self-esteem as not being defined by what others think of you.  If you want to succeed, you should try and do your best.  Don’t let everyone else bring you down to their level.  Know what you believe, what you want to be, and don’t settle.  Pretty powerful stuff, I think.  Oh, it’s hard to do–especially if you’re constantly looking for approval–but it can be done.

I will say that Oprah is one woman who has dreamt big and really made it happen.  In her “What I Know for Sure” essay in this Dreams issue, she talks about dreaming about working in television, but she didn’t want to be a big celebrity.  Instead she focused on the process and became a more excellent person, and then the big dream came to fruition.

She writes that you need to really reach and become the best person you can–there’s so much potential inside of each one of us, but it’s up to us to define what that potential is and work toward it.  We can’t be afraid to follow our big dreams, but we also have to be open to the process that the big dream is–I mean, it’s a big dream for a reason, right?  But just keep moving forward toward your goal, working hard at it.  But what’s also important is to let some higher power have that dream so it can also help see that dream fulfilled.  It sounds kind of weird, but I get it–at some point you have to let go and pray that that something bigger than you can help your dream become a reality.

The “What I Know For Sure” essay in vol. 1 iss. 6 hones in on the intentions of giving. Oprah says if you give because you simply want to give, your generosity will be returned to you. Maybe not from where you put your giving energies, but in some way, the favor will be repaid.

It’s an interesting philosophy and a delicate balance to remember. You give because you want to give, not because you want somebody to owe you later. That’s just not the way to do it.

The rest of the piece is about how Oprah gives (all year long, at unexpected times), and how giving small can pack the same punch as giving big (that’s the message here…how that changes with her reality show’s theme of “Give big, or go home,” is kind of interesting). It’s just important to give to others, just as so much has been given to you.

Did you know that Oprah keeps a daily gratitude journal? She’s taken the advice of Sarah Ban Breathnach and writes down at least five things she’s grateful for. They run the gamut from the simple things in life to important things like health. She does this because she believes that when you’re grateful, doors will open and you’ll receive a lot more bounty.

“It’s not easy being grateful all the time,” she writes. “But it’s when you feel least thankful that you are most in need of what gratitude can give you: perspective.”

It’s nice that Oprah acknowledges how hard it can be to be grateful. She’s just as human as the rest of us, and even though it’s kind of glossed over here, I’m sure she’s had many a bad day. It’s hard to get past the bad days, but even if we can be thankful for a couple of things, life will get better and we’ll learn to see more of the good around us.

Remember when the Texas cattle ranchers sued Oprah for supposedly defaming the beef industry?  Well, Oprah’s “What I Know For Sure” column this month talks about that episode in her life.  She didn’t really understand why this was happening, and even though she believes everything happens for a reason, she couldn’t quite figure out what this was supposed to teach her.

And then she went on the stand.  The prosecuting attorney tried to paint a picture of Oprah that made her out to be a manipulator as she conspired against the beef industry.  As she listened, she “got very still inside” and told herself that the words they said didn’t define her accurately.  Then she realized what she was supposed to learn:  “I realized that whether you’re on trial or you’re going through a trial–difficulty, pain, illness, heartache–the trial stands outside of you, flailing, ranting and raging, trying to tell you who you are.”

She goes on to say that nobody can tell you who you are–you alone can define yourself.  You just have to trust that who you are is OK and that no matter what happens, you’ll be just fine.

Oprah’s last-page column hits hard:  You become what you believe–not what you wish or want but what you truly believe.  Wherever you are in life, look at your beliefs.  They put you there.

That’s strong stuff.  She illustrates it with a few examples like never believing that she would be stuck struggling to maintain a house (or be poor), and also that words from her father helped her believe she’d always be heavy.  She’s working on that last one.  It’s nice to know that she’s working on stuff too.

What do I believe about me?  That I am a good writer.  That I am smart and curious.  That I like to see how other people live.  That I feel about 8 years younger than I am.  Also that I’m a bit of a thin-skinned hot head and chunky.  That I need to slow down and breathe and plan and be confident in my abilities.