A Job Lost, a Life Found

Oprah began this Remembering Your Spirit segment by defining what spirit is... and isn't. "Spirit is not religion," she said to those who've questioned her intentions, "it's just about deciding what is really great about yourself, and remembering to live that way."

That's how Don Snyder found a new life for himself following the loss of his career.

A successful college professor, Don lost his professorship when his university chose not to offer him tenure. Initially, Don didn't worry, thinking that he would find a new position quickly.

Instead, three years of unemployment followed, during which Don became increasingly despondent over the course his life had taken. "I took the classic American fall," he said. Eventually he became a house painter, and a man who could no longer see himself climbing a ladder of success.

It was during this time that Don began writing letters to his children. At first, he tried explaining to them what had happened to him, and to the life he had planned for them. Then, Don began writing only about the love he had for them, and the good times they were experiencing despite their reduced circumstances.

Those letters became The Cliff Walk, a book that examines Don's three years in the darkness. And today, he honors the lessons those years taught him, when he first heard an inner voice he had never once heard as a college professor.

"I we can hear those words, deep within us, in our spirit... maybe each one of us is capable of creating some kind of masterpiece," he says. "A teacher could find the compassion... to write something on a students paper that will change their life... Each one of us has the potential for a masterpiece, but it originates in that spirit that dwells within each one of us."

From the show Oprah's 2000 Time Capsule Follow-Up

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