The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

“I realize now that my father’s disability gave me an early and important lesson about what it feels like to be different, to move through this world marked by something you can’t much control. Even if we weren’t dwelling on it, that differentness was always there.”

Obama introduces her theme of differentness through the lens of her father’s chronic illness and disability. This quote emphasizes how people can’t control the ways in which they differ from others or the negative repercussions that they might face because of it. Obama’s anecdotes about her father help convey her childhood experience and her insight into differentness.

“To me, my fearful mind is noisy but generally ineffectual—more thunder than lightning—and that’s taken the teeth right out of her agenda. Any time I hear the patter of negativity and self-criticism starting to get loud in my brain, when my doubts begin to build, I try to pause for a moment and call it as I see it.”

Obama’s discussion about the fearful mind helps underpin her advice about being “comfortably afraid.” This quotation keeps Obama’s recommendation grounded in realism; she notes that everyone has a “fearful mind,” including her, and the best we can do is learn to consciously manage our thoughts and reactions.

“We are capable of making a home delivery to approval and kindness, even to the weary and imperfect person who appears before us in the mirror. We can acknowledge our own light, our own sense of what is.”

Obama emphasizes people’s agency in building self-esteem and positive self-talk. This quote helps support her argument that a happy, productive life starts with one’s relationship with oneself, and that changing one’s self-talk can positively affect people’s lives.