The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

by Michelle Obama

believe that each of us carries a bit of inner brightness, something entirely unique and individual, a flame that’s worth protecting. When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it. When we learn to foster what’s unique in the people around us, we become better able to build compassionate communities and make meaningful change.

I’ve learned it’s okay to recognize that self-worth comes wrapped in vulnerability,

One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it. This is the power of the light we carry.

We ourselves are always in motion, in progress. We are perpetually in flux. We keep learning even when we’re tired of learning, changing even when we’re exhausted by change. There are few guaranteed outcomes. Each day we are tasked with becoming some newer version of ourselves.

How do we adapt? How do we get more comfortable, less paralyzed, inside of uncertainty? What tools do we have to sustain ourselves? Where do we find extra pillars of support? How can we create safety and stability for others? And if we work as one, what might we manage to overcome together?

sometimes the big stuff becomes easier to handle when you deliberately put something small alongside it. When

Find something that’s active, something that asks for your mind but uses your body as well. Immerse yourself in a process. And forgive yourself for temporarily ducking out of the storm.

Find one thing you can actively complete and give yourself over to it, even if it is of no immediate benefit to anybody but yourself.

Allow yourself the gift of absorption.

keep laying the small alongside the big. One is a good companion for the other. Small endeavors help to guard our happiness, to keep it from getting consumed by all that’s big. And when we feel good, it turns out we become less paralyzed.

I begin to feel out of sync, if I’m feeling unsupported or overwhelmed, I try to take stock of what my garden holds, what I’ve planted and what I still need to mix in: What’s feeding my soil? What’s helping to block the weeds? Am I cultivating both the small and the tall?

Preparedness becomes a hedge against panic. And panic is what will lead you into disaster.

I gotta remember this one!

The world turns out to be full of lines and limits, some of them difficult to cross, some of them necessary to cross, and some of them better off exploded altogether. Many of us spend full lifetimes trying to discern which we cross and which we don’t.

learning how to shelter your flame without hiding its light.

Going high is like drawing a line in the sand, a boundary we can make visible and then take a moment to consider. Which side of this do I want to be on? It’s a reminder to pause and be thoughtful, a call to respond with both your heart and your head. Going high is always a test, as I see

The notion of going high shouldn’t raise any questions about whether we are obligated to fight for more fairness, decency, and justice in this world; rather, it’s about how we fight, how we go about trying to solve the problems we encounter, and how we sustain ourselves long enough to be effective rather than burn out. There

My power lay in whatever I could manage to do with that hurt and rage,

Going high is about resisting the temptation to participate in shallow fury and corrosive contempt and instead figuring out how to respond with a clear voice to whatever is shallow and corrosive around you. It’s what happens when you take a reaction and mature it into a response.

Going high is not just about what happens on a single day or month or inside one election cycle, either. It happens over the course of a lifetime, the course of a generation.

“Freedom is not a state; it is an act,” he once wrote. “It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest.”

We’ve become adept at making noise and congratulating one another for it, but sometimes we forget to do the work. With a three-second investment, you may be creating an impression, but you are not creating change.

The problems around us are only compounding. We will need to rediscover our trust in other people, to restore some of our lost faith—all that’s been shaken out of us in recent years. None of it gets done alone. Little of it will happen if we isolate inside our pockets of sameness, communing only with others who share our exact views, talking more than we listen.

“Don’t ever pretend that you have all the answers. It’s okay to say ‘I don’t know.’ ”

A motto like “We go high” does nothing if we only just hear it and repeat it. We can’t coast on words alone. We can’t declare ourselves sad or angry or committed or hopeful and then just sit down and rest. It’s the kind of lesson we’ll only continue to learn.

The thick-skin part means learning what to do with your rage and your hurt, where to put it, how to convert it into actual power.

Going high is about learning to keep the poison out and the power in.

recognize that you are operating on a budget, as all of us are. When it comes to our attention, our time, our credibility, our goodwill toward and from others, we work with a limited but renewable set of resources. We fill and empty our pockets repeatedly throughout life. We earn, save, and spend.

Going high is a commitment, and not a particularly glamorous one, to keep moving forward. It only works when we do the work.

is stay vigorous and faithful, humble and empathetic. Tell the truth, do your best by others, keep perspective, understand history and context. Stay prudent, stay tough, and stay outraged.