I just finished this really excellent book by Michelle Obama called The Light We Carry. A friend gave me this book as a gift and I really loved reading it. I had not yet read Becoming, her other book, but it had been on my list for a while of books to read. The Light We Carry has a lot of really good messages about life and how to navigate it, and some parts resonated with me personally. I really like the chapter where she talks about relationships and how she and Barack navigated the ups and downs of being in the White House. In one part she writes about how she wanted her daughters, Sasha and Malia, to not view marriage or relationships as the end all be all, but to develop independence and learn what works for them in relationships and what does not. She also affirms that it’s okay to not have a partner if that’s not what you want in life. I think this was really affirming for me because I am unsure whether I want to be in a relationship or get married yet, but it can feel like a lot of pressure since many of my friends are getting married and having families. Michelle Obama debunks this myth I had in my head that simply getting married and having children will make all my problems go away and explains that relationships take effort and patience and that at the end of the day, you still need to face yourself and all your strengths and weaknesses. I had this naive idea that getting married and having a family would fix all my problems and bring me total bliss, but I am realizing that’s not a very healthy way to look at relationships. Reading Discussions on Youth by Daisaku Ikeda also really helped because in the “What is Love?” chapter he talks about how it’s important to not lose sight of one’s personal growth when falling in love with someone and that even in a relationship or marriage it’s important to be independent and secure in who you are. I am still figuring out who I am, to be honest, and I think that’s why I was so worried about getting in a relationship because I thought I had to change who I was for the other person. I had a boyfriend back in 2016 but we broke up after a year of doing long-distance, and it was really painful. When we were together it felt exhilarating and like I had just won a prize, especially because the guy I was crushing on before I found my boyfriend was already in a relationship, so I couldn’t be with him. Falling in love with this boy felt magical, but then when we went our separate ways I had to navigate a lot of emotions and pain, while also dealing with my work, friendships, and other things in life. I really appreciate that I have this time to myself to figure out what I really want. I want to be truly happy for my friends when they date, get engaged, married and start families, but I think being truly happy for them means being happy for myself, too and celebrating the growth I have achieved in just these past few years.
Another thing I really love in the book is how she talks about “when they go low, we go high.” I just remembered it as a phrase, but Michelle Obama says that going high doesn’t mean ignoring injustice or inequalities in society, or acting like things will work out without taking action. It requires a lot of effort and patience and also self-compassion because doing the work of dismantling oppression or injustice takes a lot of planning and action. She differentiates between responding and reacting. The former is more reflective, like figuring out how to react in a constructive way. There is a lot to be angry about, of course. But as Mrs. Obama explains, simply reacting out of emotion is not always going to help address decades of injustice. It’s the easiest thing to do, but the hardest thing to do is channeling that anger into constructive action. I remember when George Floyd was killed, and like many people I was furious and upset and confused and scared for what the future held for so many Black people like myself. It was also during the pandemic, so I pretty much stayed inside, but I wanted to make some sort of cause for the racial justice movement in my own way, so I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo a lot about it, and I wrote a poem in memory of Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman who was killed by police in early March of 2020. I couldn’t get rid of my anger, but I didn’t want to let it keep stewing silently until it ate me alive, so writing the poem and sharing it with others helped me feel that my writing could be a medium to bring up social injustices and express my hurt, pain and frustration.
Mrs. Obama also talks about the importance of setting boundaries. Even when being in the White House was busy and she had a lot of engagements, Mrs. Obama talks about how she made sure to take time to exercise, eat well, and take care of herself so that she could continue to have the energy to show up for people as her most authentic self. This really resonated with me because these last few years I have realized the hard way that self-care isn’t something you only practice when you have free time or when your schedule is totally clear. It is a daily weekly thing you should make time for. In college, I rolled my eyes every time one of the seniors told me to make time for myself because I thought being busy was a virtue and self-compassion and self-care was just laziness. However, by junior year I was exhausted and my body literally could no longer get by on four hours of sleep every day. I was sleeping in class, my emotions were out of whack, I was calling in sick to work, I was stress-eating, and I became very lonely because I would often say “no” to meeting with people, even for something as casual as ice cream. This leads to another good part of the book where Michelle Obama talks about the importance of friendship. Even though I’m an introvert, having close friends has been one of the things to get me through those ups and downs of life. My friends were constantly checking in with me and inviting me to eat with them and hang out with them, and they would come to my room and remind me to take a break and go out for some good food and drinks instead of staying holed up in my room studying. I am forever thankful to them for that because I loved studying and loved my classes, and I studied a lot, but in retrospect, so did everyone else. Looking back, those relationships in college helped me grow leaps and bounds, and these friends helped me get through so much stuff even when I wasn’t always open to talking about what I was going through and wanted to just pretend everything was okay. I really appreciate Mrs. Obama talking about the importance of cultivating friendships and reaching out to people because these past few years I have learned that a lot of times, I need to reach out to people in order to overcome my feelings of isolation and loneliness. And friendships take a lot of work and patience, and as someone who isn’t very patient, I am learning to be a better listener and grow from my friendships.
I have so many more thoughts about this book that are just running and bubbling through my mind, but I am getting sleepy, so I will talk about it more at a later time. Overall, though, I recommend you read The Light We Carry if you haven’t already. It is really good.
Discover more from The Arts Are Life
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The Arts Are Life 