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Stand tall in this world. You are worthy and beautiful!

A tribute to Susan Boyle

By Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com

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I stopped following ‘American Idol’ after its third season. I loved experiencing the few Idol hopefuls grow and flourish in their artistic ability, but I never forgot about the auditions, eliminations, and polarizing competition dominating the show, sorting and judging people, making idols out of few and while basically telling the rest to “go home, you’re not good enough.”

Good enough for what, whom?

The contestants who are forgotten about by most people after the video clips peter-out from the online viral effect are the ones I can't stop thinking about. Where are they now? What did the experience teach them? Did they allow other people to discourage their dreams? Do they believe everything said about them? Do they allow the words and opinions of others to dissolve their determination to keep moving forward?

Don't get me wrong; I understand the premise of these shows and of their need to be competitive and sensational. I understand marketing, profitability, and TV-show ratings. I understand business and bottom lines. But I also understand people and creativity and the dire need in this world for all of us to treat life more than just as a competitive arena where the idolizing of the most popular, talented, richest, marketable, airbrushed, bankable humans and commodities is allowed to take priority over the staples of humanity.

I believe it is imperative that each of us learn how to value ourselves and celebrate our creative gifts with a strong internal foundation and confidence first — so we don't mistakenly rely on the media, published books, blog hits, Twitter followers, or other external measurements of popularity or competition to dictate our worth as human beings. Finding supportive community, connecting with like-minded people, and reciprocating to those who help nurture our creative dreams helps in this process.

It is not coincidental that my work with the Creativity Portal during the first decade of this new Millennium has grown to embrace this vision, but only begins to scratch the surface on the work to be done. Being a heart-centered entrepreneur has its challenges in our money- and competition-driven society, but finding an abundance of good company in this consciousness is both comforting and validating. More exciting is being aware of how we're all part of creating the evolution of our species.

A final octave: It may appear that Susan Boyle came out of nowhere, becoming an over-the-night singing sensation on account of her appearing on Britain's reality-TV show. We'll surely see more of her in the coming weeks and months. Maybe she'll even win the competition or have other opportunities open up to her on account of her new-found fame.

But the truth is, Susan Boyle has always been who she is, worthy and beautiful just as you and I, full of creative potential waiting to be expressed. Undoubtedly, Susan's spent years investing in herself, reinventing herself, and honing her craft and now finds herself standing tall in her creative confidence on the threshold of the world stage to make us all more aware. Aware of her talents and of our own. And maybe she's just made us all more aware of how we need to go forth and navigate through life's paradoxes, including that of ‘imperfect perfection.’ •

© 2009 Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com. All rights reserved. (04/18/09) Please do not duplicate this article elsewhere without my permission.

About the Author | More by Chris Dunmire
Chris Dunmire is creatively engaged in life as an artist, writer, seeker, and publisher of the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She's the author of the instructional how-to Dollar Bill Origami Money Plant. Learn more about Chris and her creative projects at ChrisDunmire.com.