Oprah Winfrey and Friends Write Letters to Their Younger Selves

She's had an ultra-successful career which has spanned multiple decades, and Oprah Winfrey appears alongside her younger self on the cover of the May 2012 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

Set to hit newsstands on April 10th, the 58-year-old's publication finds her writing a letter to her younger self while also including heartfelt notes from Katie Couric, Octavia Spencer, and others to the people they used to be - with the hope of inspiring readers to live their best lives at every age.

Highlights from Miss Winfrey's feature article are as follows. For more, be sure to pay a visit to O, The Oprah Magazine!

An excerpt from Oprah's letter which accompanies a photo found in the May issue:
“In this photo you are just about to turn 20, posing outside the television station where you were recently hired as a reporter. You’re proud of yourself for getting the job, but uncertain you’ll be able to manage all your college classes before 1 and arrive at the station by 1:30 for a full day’s work. Even so, your biggest concern is how to manage your love life with Bubba. Yes, you are dating someone named Bubba.

“On this day, you’ve brought him to the station to see where you work, hoping he’ll be proud, too. He seems less than impressed. The truth is, he’s intimidated. You don’t see this, though, because you can see yourself only through his eyes. A lesson you will have to learn again and again: to see yourself with your own eyes, to love yourself from your own heart.”

“From where I sit now, viewing your journey, there are few regrets. Only months before this picture was taken, you wrote a poem about a “woman becoming.” Even then you understood that success was a process and that moving with the flow of life and not against it would be your greatest achievement.”

Katie Couric on the advice she’d give the 25-year-old she used to be:
“It pays to know your stuff about sports. A lot of guy talk and bonding happens over big games and great athletes, so it helps if you’re not clueless. Playing a sport like golf can be even more helpful. Whether you win or lose on the links doesn’t matter—it’s being invited to play that counts.”

Octavia Spencer on the advice she’d give the 25-year-old she used to be:
“As you make your way along life’s tumultuous highways, it’s important to note that you should always carry a map, have plenty of fuel in the tank, and take frequent rest stops.”

Alecia Elliott Alessandra Ambrosio Alexis Bledel Ali Campoverdi Ali Larter