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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

It was possible, I knew, to live on two planes at once—to have one’s feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction of progress.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Direction Live Plant Possible Success
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
I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of being in the room?
MICHELLE OBAMA

Learning Myself Value Voice
I’ve smiled for photos with people who call my husband horrible names on national television, but still want a framed keepsake for their mantel.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Husband Myself Photograph Smile
Everything 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 OBAMA

Believe Direction Ideal Lost Myself Need Ourselves Reality True
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
The more popular you became, the more haters you acquired.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Fame Hate Success
It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Death Hurt Live Myself
No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Effort Inspirational Myself
Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Different History Myself Past
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
just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Different Thinking Yourself
In my blinding drive to excel, in my need to do things perfectly, I’d missed the signs and taken the wrong road.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Myself Need Perfection Road Wrong
And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Character Life People Relationship Respect Value Word
Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result
MICHELLE OBAMA

Failure Feeling Inspirational Result
Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?
MICHELLE OBAMA

Deep Philosophy World

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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