Ideas, Moments, and the Next American Idol

By Nichole Giles

I’ve never been a fan of American Idol. I don’t usually watch much T.V., but when your children have it on, excited to see their favorite singers, you can’t help but look. So I looked. Then I kept looking, and before I knew it, I was sitting on the couch next to the kids predicting who was going to be eliminated and who would make it to the next round.

Then I got thinking. Not long ago, these contestants were waitresses, auto mechanics, and students, who sometimes sounded good when they sang in the shower. They might have stayed that way, only sharing their talents with the soap and shampoo, except that one day, someone thought, Hey, wouldn’t it be a good idea to hold a T.V. contest to find the one person in America who sings better than everyone else?

And a few years later, a whole lot of nobody’s became overnight sensations. Now, that waitress is almost a household name. The lives of those people are forever changed by someone’s good idea.

It is amazing to me that one person’s idea could affect so many people—from the rejects to the stars. All these thoughts of ideas that influence people with life changing consequences made me think back to some of the things that have affected my own personality, even my own life. Surely, there have been many. But that is not the point.

The point is, whether we realize it or not, sometime in our life each of us has the opportunity to change someone else’s life, one way or another. And it doesn’t usually take a really big-deal-national-phenomenon-great idea. It could be a passing thought, a silly quip, or a profound sentence. You just never know when or where that life-altering moment will happen to you, or conversely, when you will create that moment for someone else.

Now, you are probably thinking, “Okay, nice thoughts and all, but what’s your point?”

The way I see it, you only have one chance to live today. Today is the best day to come up with a brilliant idea. And if that idea isn’t the one that will change a life, maybe tomorrow’s good idea will. Or the idea after that. You just never know. It might be ten or twenty years or more before you run into the person who remembers you as the person who set the example, made the statement, or wrote the words, that made a difference. So take your idea and run with it.

And who knows, maybe someday YOU can be the next American Idol.