just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
MICHELLE OBAMAjust do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
MICHELLE OBAMAThis may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path–the my-isn’t-that-impressive- path– and keep you there for a long time.
MICHELLE OBAMAIt’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?
MICHELLE OBAMAFor me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.
MICHELLE OBAMAI hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.
MICHELLE OBAMAThe burden of assimilation is put largely on the shoulders of minority students.
MICHELLE OBAMAWhen you’re First Lady, America shows itself to you in its extremes.
MICHELLE OBAMAI look back on the discomfort of that moment now and recognize the more universal challenge of squaring who you are with where you come from and where you want to go.
MICHELLE OBAMANow I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child – What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.
MICHELLE OBAMAI grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.
MICHELLE OBAMAI began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.
MICHELLE OBAMAIt was painful, but time pushed us all forward.
MICHELLE OBAMAWhat I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first.
MICHELLE OBAMALook how I’m managing, I wanted to say in those moments, to my audience of no one. Does everyone see that I’m pulling this off?
MICHELLE OBAMAEverything was not lost. This was the message we needed to carry forward. It’s what I truly believed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was our reality—the world as it is. We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.
MICHELLE OBAMAEveryone on Earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
MICHELLE OBAMA