Why Dolly Parton Chooses Gratitude: ‘I Count My Blessings Far More Than I Count My Money’
By Movieguide® Staff
“I count my blessings far more than I count my money because I know this could have not happened to me,” Dolly Parton told Fox News in a recent interview. “I see so many people more talented than me that never make it and the fact that I have just done so well, I’m amazed myself. It’s almost scary sometimes. I hope I can always live up to the expectations of me, it would break my heart not to. I’m very humble and that’s because of my love to God and the blessings.”
The 76-year-old country artist said that when she first entered the public limelight, there was pressure from all sides on how she should present herself.
“The way I look and the way I looked then was a country girl’s idea of glam, just like I wrote in my ‘Backwoods Barbie’ song. But people wanted me to change, they thought I looked cheap. But I patterned my look after the town tramp,” Parton said.
“Everybody said, ‘She’s trash,'” she continued. “And in my little girl mind, I thought, ‘Well, that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.’ It was really like a look that I was after. I wasn’t a natural beauty. So, I just like to look the way I look. I’m so outgoing inside in my personality, that I need the way I look to match all of that.”
Parton’s look is just as iconic as her faith and calling to serve her community.
Throughout her career, Parton was open about her faith’s role in her calling as a musician and her relationships.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Despite Parton’s fame and awards in almost every area of entertainment, she held on to her faith in God.
“I really feel like I have a calling,” Parton said. “I feel like God had told me early on in a feeling that I was supposed to go till He told me to stop and He [hasn’t] said nothing yet about quitting. And so I ain’t said nothing about retiring yet.”
Parton also lives out her faith in prayer.
“Every day I pray for God to lead me and to take out all the wrong things, wrong people in my life, bring all the right things, right people in, and to let me glorify Him and uplift mankind,” Parton said. “Let me be a light, and a vessel to be used…I just really want to do what I can in this world to make things better, if I can.”
Parton added: “There’s something bigger and better than us and we need to connect to that to make us better people. And the more you can draw from that, the better off you are, not just for yourself, but for all the things from people that you can touch by believing that.”
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