Becoming

by Michelle Obama

But the doubts never leave us for good. We all have our tender spots, and our instinct is to keep them protected.

Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.

Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances.

most people were good people if you just treated them well.

Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear.