Can't Is Not an Option: My American Story

by Nikki R. Haley

Simmi remembers a day when a young boy came up to the house with tears in his eyes and handed her a Bible. “You don’t believe in the same God we do and I don’t want you to go to hell,” he said. She took it and hid it under her pillow. That night, when Mom was tucking her in, she found it and told Simmi, “I want you to read this cover to cover, because there’s truth in here.” My parents would receive invitations to visit various congregations, and they would take us along. We were exposed early to lots of different faiths. Mom and Dad would always say, “People have different ways of getting to God. The most important thing is that you can’t have too much God in your life.”

Today, as an adult and a mom, I understand what my parents were trying to do. They wanted us to be tough. They knew that we would face hardships and obstacles in life, and they wanted us to be prepared. So their philosophy was that you don’t complain about problems, you do something about them. And when you decide to do something, be the best at it and make sure people remember you for it.

My parents were better Americans than just about anybody I knew, but they retained their traditional ways when it came to my brothers’ and sister’s and my getting married. They believed it was their job to choose our spouses. It was hard to argue with them. They came from a culture in India with a less than 1 percent divorce rate. They had come to a culture in America with a divorce rate of over 50 percent. There are important differences between America and India that account for this disparity, but my parents saw it as their duty to make sure that we married well. They believed it was their job to make sure we married someone from the same background, with the same religion and the same education level—just as their families had matched them. They sincerely believed that if they failed to do that, they failed as parents.

When I speak to groups of young people today, I always tell them they need to have three war stories—three stories in which they did something that was uncomfortable and came out stronger for it. If you don’t have three war stories, I tell them, you have more living to do and you need to challenge yourself. If they do have three war stories, I congratulate them and encourage them to keep doing what they’re doing.