I am reading Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming and it is an excellent book. What a journey she travelled from the South Side of Chicago sharing the top floor of a house with her parents and brother to the White House. She remembers being drawn in when she went to listen to her friend Barack, a law student doing a placement where she was a lawyer, speak at a community meeting. He said, “You can live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be.” You can have hope.
I am in awe of the way she balanced her career before politics, raised two young girls in the public eye, made the White House accessible, grew thousands of pounds of produce in a garden that was planted by and shared with the local community.
She said that the worst question she feels you can ask a child is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As if it’s a destination. The answer to your quest. When really we are always growing, changing and becoming more of who we truly are. She said, “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.”
How are we becoming more of ourselves each day? How are we challenging our limits? Leaving our comfort zones? The goal of a lifetime is to become all that we were meant to be.