How would you feel like to be born in a deep poverty and to grow in a slum? Just imagine wearing potato sacks and the local children making fun of you. Wouldn’t you pray and wish you were not born? What if you were deprived of fatherly sympathy and advice? What if you were the victim of racial discrimination for being born black? What if your grandmother would punish you severely in your childhood whenever you refused to do the drudgery or made a mistake and there was no one when you needed a shoulder to cry on? Just imagine one more tragic incident, but don’t mind, please! Besides all these, what if you were a girl and being molested by your uncle, or cousin? What would you feel like if your sister or brother had somewhat the same experience? What if you were born poor and black? Wouldn’t you be a popular billionaire now?

If I were her, I would hate myself or would lose all hope. Perhaps, such a misfortune would leave a deep scar in me. It would be a great barrier ahead for the rest of my life.

This might seem to you a fairy tale or an excerpt taken from a novel, but this is the real life of an African – American woman Oprah Gail Winfrey. Winfrey was born in 1954 in Mississippi to an unmarried teenage mother. She later said that her conception was due to a single contact and the couple broke up not long after.

After Winfrey’s birth, her mother, Vernita Lee, traveled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother who was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which the local children made fun of her. Her grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed “The Preacher” for her ability to recite Bible verses. When she was a child, her grandmother would hit her with a stick when she did not do chores or if she misbehaved in any way.

At age six, she moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee with her mother who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, largely as a result of the long hours she worked as a maid.

Winfrey has stated she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old. At 13, after suffering years of abuse, Winfrey ran away from home. When she was 14, she became pregnant but her son died shortly after birth. Winfrey’s half-brother died of AIDS-related causes in 1989 and her younger half-sister died of causes related to cocaine addiction in 2003.

Sent to live with the man she calls her father who was a barber, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became nationally syndicated.

Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently North America’s only black billionaire. According to some assessments, she is also the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by American President and an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard.

Winfrey currently lives on “The Promised Land”, her 42-acre estate with ocean and mountain views in California. She also owns a house in New Jersey; an apartment in Chicago; an estate on Fisher Island, Florida; a ski house in Colorado and property on Maui, Hawaii and Antigua. Don’t you think that you are reading a fiction?

Winfrey’s life seems more like a film than a real story. I believe that she is a unique heroine and a role model for the women who suffer severely in one way or another. In spite of being humiliated, mocked for her miserable life, underwent honor-killing crime, etc, she never lost her hope. She was hurt mentally, emotionally and physically, but her spirit did not sink.

In addition, in the face of being treated as a pariah and suffering cruelty, Winfrey cherished philanthropic feelings. She remained softhearted and kept her moral standards from being eroded in the world of evil and inhumanity. She is still well-known for having a heart of gold. Winfrey supports orphans, the poor and the school girls. Her charitable deeds are highly praiseworthy.

Winfrey’s life arouses one’s curiosity to know about the key of her success. Undeniably, her prosperity is based on her indomitable courage and invincible resistance. She says, ““You will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal. There really is only one, and that is this: To fulfill the highest, most truthful expression of yourself as a human being. You want to max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family, and the people around you. Theologian Howard Thurman said it best. He said, ‘Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’”

Let us keep Winfrey, and others who acquired prosperity in their life, as a role model in our own life. To attain our dreams, we will have to emulate their way and move towards our destination with an iron determination.