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I 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 Obama

Marriage, he told me early on, struck him as an unnecessary and overhyped convention.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Himself Marriage Necessary
For 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 OBAMA

Achievement End Growth Journey Myself See
Even white people were recognizing him now.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Himself People Recognize Worth
The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Black Man Oppression Reality
You don’t really know how attached you are until you move away, until you’ve experienced what it means to be dislodged, a cork floating on the ocean of another place.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Attachment Experience Ocean Place Yourself
Even if we didn’t know the context, we were instructed to remember that context existed. Everyone on earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Alone Carry Challenge Change Deserve Existence History Remember See Tolerance
At fifty-four, I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Hope Improvement Mindset Myself
I wanted Americans to understand that words matter—that the hateful language they heard coming from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Country Hate Language Myself Reflection Spirit True Understand Word
It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Death Hurt Live Myself
As a kid, you learn to measure long before you understand the size or value of anything. Eventually, if you’re lucky, you learn that you’ve been measuring all wrong.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Children Learning Understand Value Wrong
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.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Doubt Failure Fear Feeling Result Vulnerable
We explain when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you do not stoop to their level. Our motto is when they go low, you go high.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Act Explanation Inspirational
It’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 OBAMA

Challenge Change Easy Feeling Justice
It was painful, but time pushed us all forward.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Hard Time Pain Success
failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Failure Feeling Result
America, our moment is now, Barack said. Our moment is now.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Moment Ourselves Present

I 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.

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I 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.

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Popular Authors

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