A Promised Land

by Barack Obama

“there are people in the world who think only about themselves. They don’t care what happens to other people so long as they get what they want. They put other people down to make themselves feel important. “Then there are people who do the opposite, who are able to imagine how others must feel, and make sure that they don’t do things that hurt people. “So,” she said, looking me squarely in the eye. “Which kind of person do you want to be?”

And then there was the unsettling fact that, despite whatever my mother might claim, the bullies, cheats, and self-promoters seemed to be doing quite well, while those she considered good and decent people seemed to get screwed an awful lot.

They knew what mattered to them; when they spoke in class, their views were rooted in actual communities, actual struggles.

social movements, where ordinary people joined together to make change.

how you could build power not by putting others down but by lifting them up. This was true democracy at work—democracy

I had to listen to, and not just theorize about, what mattered to people.

the conflict that I was feeling: between working for change within the system and pushing against it; wanting to lead but wanting to empower people to make change for themselves; wanting to be in politics but not of it.

The doubts arose from having to prove, no matter how well you did, that you belonged in the room—prove it not just to those who doubted you but to yourself.

“All I know,” she said at one point, “is that I must really love you to spend my Saturday morning doing this.”

I thought about my own father, whose absence had done more to shape me than the brief time I’d spent with him, and I realized that there was no place on earth I would rather be.

I was trying to deliver a lot of things to a lot of different people.

It speaks, I tell my audience, to the unpredictable nature of politics, and the necessity for resilience.

I had become the very thing that, as a younger man, I had warned myself against. I had become a politician—and not a very good one at that.

Over time, though, I focused more on listening. And the more I listened, the more people opened up.

For me, it was a useful lesson in diplomacy, an example of the real impact a senator could have.

struck me as I moved from cot to cot that many of the people there, most of whom were Black, had been abandoned long before the hurricane—scratching out a living on the periphery without savings or insurance.

no matter how my circumstances may have changed, theirs had not.

The truth is, I’ve never been a big believer in destiny. I worry that it encourages resignation in the down-and-out and complacency among the powerful. I suspect that God’s plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to

align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we’re dealt.

The power to inspire is rare. Moments like this are rare. You think you may not be ready, that you’ll do it at a more convenient time. But you don’t choose the time. The time chooses you. Either you seize what may turn out to be the only chance you have, or you decide you’re willing to live with the knowledge that the chance has passed you

It felt sometimes as if I’d been caught in a tide, carried along by the current of other people’s expectations before I’d clearly defined my own.

her worst fears rendered concrete and specific and therefore more manageable.

I know that the day I raise my right hand and take the oath to be president of the United States, the world will start looking at America differently. I know that kids all around this country—Black kids, Hispanic kids, kids who don’t fit in—they’ll see themselves differently, too, their horizons lifted, their possibilities expanded. And that alone…that would be worth it.”

In many ways, my problems were a direct outgrowth of the buzz we’d generated, and the expectations that came with it.

I’d staked my claim in the presidential race, involved a big team of people, begged strangers for money, and propagated a vision I believed in. But I missed my wife. I missed my kids. I missed my bed, a consistent shower, sitting at a proper table for a proper meal. I missed not having to say the exact same thing the exact same way five or six or seven times a day.

was my general inability to boil issues down to their essence,

he never failed to show people how much they mattered.

in matters of judgment, intelligence, values, and character, they are more worthy than you. You may tell yourself it’s not personal, but that’s not how it feels.

Not to you and certainly not to your family, your staff, or your supporters, who count up every slight and every insult, real or perceived.

“Well, Hillary, I’m looking forward to you advising me as well.”