For those of you who haven’t seen the video of Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, it’s worth taking a look. Similar to the story of Paul Potts a little while ago, here is an unknown British lady, aged 47. Never married and never even kissed! Unfortunately, you can see from her appearance why she was laughed at when she said she wanted to become a professional singer, and be as famous as Elaine Paige (http://www.elainepaige.com/).
When she began to sing it was truly amazing. What’s remarkable is that she’s 47, and up until now had been an unknown. Who knows how small the circle was before April 11th who had heard Susan sing. It’s fantastic that a talent contest can uncover such hidden talents. It’s also sad that it had to be a talent contest that uncovered her talents. I say sad because our society highly values fame. In fact we take fame as an indicator of talent, ability, knowledge, intelligence, intuition etc. It seems that fame is the ultimate recognition of whether someone is good at what they do. That’s what’s sad, because Susan Boyle’s talents were always there, but the world didn’t know. She’s no more talented now than she was last week, just a little braver.
The question for everyone is what talents do we all have that we choose to keep hidden under a rock, that we choose to keep in the closet, that we choose to keep to ourselves. What talents are we too afraid to share with others, and what’s holding us back.
It takes a televised talent show to bring Susan Boyle to the world. And it’s tremendous that she entered herself as a contestant for the show, or what other opportunities would have passed her by.
Undoubtedly it was the action she has finally taken to assert herself and put herself out there that has brought the rewards. In 47 years to never marry or be kissed says something about her track record. Who knows what ridicule she has endured in the past to cause her to make that her life.
It seems there are so many “armchair experts” who know better than everyone else, who calmly sit back and criticize, but this lady should be cheered, revered and acknowledged for taking a huge risk and putting herself on the line.
She has won, simply for taking the risk. Her life will be forever changed, for better or worse. One thing she cannot say now is that she “could’ve been, if only…” Now she will have the answer.
We should answer these similar questions for ourselves. We should take a risk and put ourselves out there. We should not criticize those who do that because they are the ones who are taking action, and action-takers deserve to be the winners.
“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.” -Dale Carnegie
