The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

by Michelle Obama

The bad do not win—not finally, No matter how loud they are.

This is my hope - every day.

In our home, laughter was yet another well-worked tool.

Laughter allowed us to get through the in-between days, the days just before payday, the days we didn’t want to walk or wait for the bus, the days where there wasn’t much of anything else but love and laughter. It’s the laughter that transformed those hardships into strength and survival - even fond memories.

We worried about things that other families didn’t seem to worry about. We were watchful in ways it seemed others didn’t need to be. Going out, we quietly sized up the obstacles, calculating the energy it would take for my father to cross a parking lot or navigate his way through the bleachers at Craig’s basketball games. We measured distance and elevation differently. We viewed sets of stairs, icy sidewalks, and high curbs differently. We assessed parks and museums for how many benches they had, places where a tired body could rest. Everywhere we went, we weighed the risks and looked for small efficiencies for my dad. We counted every step.

Life with our own Daddy as he aged ❤️

what sort of world we want to live in, who we trust, who we elevate, and who we leave behind.

“…who we leave behind.” I’ve never consciously considered this act, it’s just always occurred naturally, a kind of fight or flight response. Lately, however, as I approach my 60th birthday, I realize that time and peace of mind are precious luxuries. I’m not willing to be frivolous with either.

Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands that you be bold.

❤️

This was also the first project that was mine alone—not tied to Barack or his administration or the lives of our kids or to some part of my previous career. I loved the independence, but I also felt myself far out on a new limb, vulnerable in ways I’d never been before.

It is wonderful and amazing how often we can reinvent ourselves in a single lifetime, if we allow it to be. I like to say I’m on my 6th or 7th life, and I’m still not done, still not sure who I’ll be when it’s time for me to go.

After I’d spilled all my fears, he simply reassured me that the book was great and so was I. He helped me remember that anxiety was a natural part of doing something new and big. He then wrapped his arms around me and touched his forehead lightly to mine. It was all I needed.

In the end, our anxiety comes not from failing ourselves, but from failing those we love - those who’s opinions of us truly matter.

I saw different ages, races, genders, ethnicities, identities, outfits, you name it—people laughing, clapping, crying, sharing. I sincerely believe that many of those people had turned up for reasons that stretched well past me or my book. My feeling was they’d shown up at least in part to feel less alone in the world, to locate some lost sense of belonging.

I’d love to produce a clear, bullet-pointed set of steps to help you conquer every uncertainty and hasten the climb to whatever heights you hope to reach. I wish it were that simple. If I had a formula, I’d hand it right over. But keep in mind that I, too, lie in bed at night sometimes, wondering whether I’m good enough. Please know that, like everyone else, I find myself needing to overcome. Also, those heights so many of us are striving toward? I’ve reached a fair number of them at this point, and for what it’s worth, I can tell you that doubt, uncertainty, and unfairness live in those places, too—in fact, they flourish.

I’ll tell you, too, about certain attitudes I’ve let go of over time, having come to understand that tools are different from and entirely more useful than defenses.

I wonder if it’s time to stop asking “When will this end?” and to instead start considering a different, more practical set of questions about staying upright inside of challenge and change: 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?

“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.” - Maya Angelou

I’d like to hold open the space for a larger, broader dialogue.

Say when, and where. I’d love to participate.

When little else was reliable in life, you could rely on your own two hands.

Mom and Daddy ❤️

We understood that our presence as Black people in the White House said something about what was possible, and so we’d doubled down on the hope and hard work, trying to fully inhabit that possibility.

Whether or not the 2016 election was a direct rebuke of all that, it did hurt. It still hurts.

That’s it - that’s the reason for the division, the reason we’re broken. “Make America Great Again” equates to making America Segregated again. Using the 1950’s model of American society and economy - going back to “the good ole days” - is a cry to return to the “simplicity” of life when everything, and everyone, was “in its place.” For many people, there was a comfort in knowing that everything and everyone was the same. There were no surprises because that’s disruptive and scary. The division in this country comes from the horror of having a Black man run the country. I often ask myself how, as a country, we could allow someone like Donald Trump (based on his character and lack of knowledge and experience) to become president, and I respond, “never again.” Well, there are millions of people in this country who ask themselves how we could allow someone like Barack Obama (based on the color of his skin and his culture) to become president, and they respond, “never again.”

I had also bought a couple of how-to books on knitting, but when I looked at them, I had a hard time translating the diagrams on the page to the motion of my hands. And so I moved myself over to YouTube, finding (as one does) a veritable ocean of tutorials and a worldwide community of passionate knitters offering hours of patient instruction and clever tips. Alone on my couch at home, my brain still stuffed with anxiety, I watched other people knit. I began to imitate. My hands followed their hands. We knit and purled, purled and knit. And after a time, something interesting started to happen. My focus narrowed; my mind felt a little splash of ease.

HAHAHA! Looks like I’m not the only one!.

Any time your circumstances start to feel all-consuming, I suggest you try going in the other direction—toward the small. Look for something that’ll help rearrange your thoughts, a pocket of contentedness where you can live for a while. And by this I don’t mean sitting passively in front of your television or scrolling through your phone. 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.

I feel the steadiest, most focused, most clear—and to think analytically about what’s helped me get to that place. I’ve found that when you’re able to read yourself this way, you are better able to recognize when you’re out of balance and to seek the help you need. You start to learn your own internal red flags and address them before things get out of hand. Did I just snap at someone I love? Am I worried about something I can’t control? Is my fear starting to rev up?

I need to start recognizing and analyzing my own internal red flags.

I think it’s always worth asking yourself: Am I afraid because I’m in actual danger, or is it simply because I’m staring newness in the face?

If fear is a response to newness, then we might consider the idea that bigotry is often a reaction to fear: Why did you cross the street at the sight of a Black boy in a hoodie? Why did you put your house on the market after an immigrant family moved in next door? What causes you to feel threatened by two men kissing on the street?

It’s strange to think that I could have altered the course of history with my fear. But I didn’t. I said yes.

Wow! What an epiphany? How many of us get to say that in our lifetimes? I, for one, am grateful that she said yes.

I didn’t want to be a family that sat around the dinner table, talking about the paths not taken or what might have been. I didn’t want to someday have to tell my daughters that there had been a time when their dad might have become president—that he’d had the faith of a lot of people and the courage to try to do something enormous, but that I’d jettisoned the possibility, pretending it was for everyone’s good when, really, I was protecting my own comfort with how things were, my interest in staying put.

Our hurts become our fears. Our fears become our limits. For many of us, this can be a heavy inheritance, carried by generations. It’s a lot to try to push back against, to try to unlearn.

to be comfortably afraid.

if you try to keep your children from feeling fear, you’re essentially keeping them from feeling competence, too.

Go forth with a spoonful of fear and return with a wagonful of competence.

A simple hug is one of the most powerful tools we have for communicating gladness for another’s presence.

But the thing is, when someone does light up for us, we remember it. The feeling lands.

Research shows that when teachers take the time to welcome students individually at the door, the level of academic engagement in the classroom goes up by more than 20 percent, while disruptive behavior goes down.

For now, though, I want to offer one small reminder, which is that real growth begins with how gladly you’re able to see yourself.

My father, whose shaky demeanor and foot-dragging limp sometimes caused people to stop and stare at him on the street, used to tell us, with a smile and a shrug, “No one can make you feel bad if you feel good about yourself.”

Instead, he measured his value by who he was and what he had—love, community, food in the fridge, two tall and noisy kids, and friends knocking on his door. He saw these things as success and as reason to keep going. It was evidence he mattered.

it’s much harder to hate up close.

For some. There will always be those, however, who will openly attack that which they hate out of fear or ignorance or insecurity - and those people tend to attract followers. There will always be bullies.

When we take time to really engage with others, we are likely to find, too, that our differences are not nearly as profound as we might think,

Real-world connections most often tend to cut against stereotypes.

With our friends, we are always looking for very simple reassurances that we matter, that our light is recognized and our voice is heard—and we owe our friends the same. I want to say, too, that it’s okay to step back from or downsize a difficult friendship. Sometimes we have to let certain friends go, or at least diminish our reliance on them.

Barack is my best friend, my true love, and my life’s greatest disrupter.

I don’t want them to see marriage as some sort of trophy that must be hunted and won, or to believe that a wedding is the sort of spectacle they need to properly launch a fulfilling life, or to ever feel that having children is any sort of requirement.

I hope they find home, whatever that ends up looking like.

Our love is not perfect, but it’s real and we’re committed to it. This particular certainty sits parked like a grand piano in the middle of every room we enter. We are, in many ways, very different people, my husband and I. He’s a night owl who enjoys solitary pursuits. I’m an early bird who loves a crowded room. In my opinion, he spends too much time golfing. In his opinion, I watch too much lowbrow TV. But between us, there’s a loving assuredness that’s as simple as knowing the other person is there to stay, no matter what. This is what I think people pick up on in those photos: that tiny triumph we get to feel, knowing that despite having spent half our lives together now, despite all the ways we aggravate each other and all the ways we are different, neither one of us has walked away. We’re still here. We remain.

An argument can seem petty, but in many instances, what’s behind it is not. In merging your life with someone else’s, you are suddenly looking at—and often being asked to adapt to—another family’s history and patterns of behavior.

And inside of that choice and those years, you’ll almost certainly come to see that there’s no such thing as a fifty-fifty balance. Instead, it’ll be like beads on an abacus, sliding back and forth—the math rarely tidy, the equation never quite solved.

You will be required to ignore all sorts of minor irritations and at least a few major ones, too, trying to assert love and constancy over all of it—over all the rough spots and inevitable disruptions. You will need to do this as often and as compassionately as you can. And you will need to be doing it with someone who is equally able and willing to create the same latitude and show the same forbearance toward you—to love you despite all the baggage you show up with, despite what you look like and how you behave when you are at your absolute worst.

“Especially for girls of color, we’re treated as lightning or gold in the pan—we’re not treated as things that are going to last,” she said. “You really have to crown yourself with the belief that what I’m about and what I’m here for is way beyond this moment. I’m learning that I am not lightning that strikes once. I am the hurricane that comes every single year, and you can expect to see me again soon.”

Amanda Gorman

the obstacles you face oftentimes have been deliberately placed; they are land mines hidden inside of systems and structures whose power is premised on the belonging of some but not all people.

Not everyone will be a lion or a hurricane. But that doesn’t mean your work won’t count. Or that your story shouldn’t be told.

There’s one last irony and it’s this: For whatever effort you make and wherever you get yourself, there may be people who will accuse you of having taken shortcuts or of being unworthy of your spot on the hill. They’ll have an arsenal of phrases—affirmative action, or scholarship kid, or gender quota, or diversity hire—and they’ll use them as weapons of disdain. The message is deeply familiar: I don’t see you as being entitled to what you’ve got.

“…affirmative action, or scholarship kid, or gender quota, or diversity hire—“ or anchor baby, illegal, welfare kid, job stealer, non-American - no matter how hard we’ve worked, how much we’ve contributed to society and the economy, no matter whether we’re naturalized or natural born several generations back, we must’ve “stolen” someone else’s shot.

Why should individual people have to try to change themselves when, really and truly, it’s their workplace that needs to change?

Whether it’s educating middle-schoolers, operating a health clinic, making pizza, or running a tech company, you’re meant to contribute to the larger endeavor, to exercise discipline, keeping your feelings for the most part stowed elsewhere. The work becomes your focus, your obligation. It’s the reason you’re being paid.

John Lewis tried to remind us of this. “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.”

“…where we can finally sit down and rest.” This is the illusion - what so many of us are subconsciously striving for - an end to the struggle, a cease-fire. In reality, there is no end to the struggle. Freedom, democracy, and equality require vigilance. So long as there are those who seek to rule absolutely, we cannot afford to sleep.