There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles—the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.“When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it,” writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.
I didn't plan for The Light We Carry to be my first book of 2023, but my turn came up on the library hold list, so I grabbed it. And it was the most perfect book to start the new year off. In the beginning pages this quote resonated with me in ways that I never expected:
Being different conditions you toward cautiousness, even as it demands being bold.
There were so many aspects of this book that resonated with me. So much that I even bought the e-book so that I could go through and highlight the parts that resonated with me. One part that I really enjoyed was when Michelle was talking about her daughters in their first apartment. It was such a "normal" thing - not a former FLOTUS thing.
One other part of the book was when she was talking about the friends she has gathered in life. She calls them people who "sit around her kitchen table." The kitchen table hold so much symbolism for me, as it could be said that it was the center of my childhood. Even now, when I host my friends, we gather around the kitchen table.
Bottom Line - The Light We Carry is such an uplifting book packed full of wisdom. Truly the perfect way to start off the new year.
Details
- The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
- On Facebook
- Pages: 336
- Publisher: Crown
- Publication Date: 11/15/2022
- Buy it Here!
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