6 things I learnt from "Becoming"

I am referring of course to Michelle Obama's memoir. I normally eschew using or writing and using titles like 5 things, 10 lessons, etc. as if life could be distilled so neatly.

When I read Becoming, I was struck by certain things she said and I put markers on those pages. It was only at the end, that I found it was 5.

1. “We live by the paradigms we know” (page 204). How true. It speaks to the conditioning of our minds, our hearts, our interactions with others and our actions based on the paradigms that have found its way into our lives. It speaks to limitations on our worldview but only if we understand and appreciate that it is limited in some way.
2. “My work was interesting and rewarding, but still I had to be careful not to let it consume me. I felt I owed that to my girls.  Our decision to let Barack’s career proceed as it had – to give him the freedom to shape and pursue his dreams – led me to tamp down my own efforts at work. Almost deliberately, I’d numbed myself somewhat to my ambition, stepping back in moments when I’d normally step forward.  I’m not sure anyone around me would have said I wasn’t doing enough, but I was always aware of everything I could have followed through on and didn’t. There were certain small scale projects I chose not to take on.  There were young employees whom I could have mentored better than I did.  You hear all the time about the trade-offs of being a working mother.  These were mine. If I’d once been someone who threw herself completely into every task, I was now more cautious, protective of my time, knowing I had to maintain enough energy for life at home (page 210). This to me speaks to many high-quality women I know who sacrificed their own goals to allow the goals of the people most dear to them to flourish. I think of my own late mother too. While I respect that some people may want to do so intentionally and deliberately, I wonder what we "others" could do so that they don't have to 'tamp down'. What are the effects of women tamping down on the economy? Creativity, balanced goals, integrity, profitability with purpose?
3. “Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear.” (page 43). This is so powerful, it deserves reflection on its own. My own two-cents is that failure as a feeling must be caused by some fear. The question is do we know our own fears?
4. “Life was teaching me that progress and change happen slowly.  Not in two years, four years, or even a lifetime. We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see.  We had to be patient.” (page 370). Some did not live to see the change in Malaysia post May 9, 2018. I like the analogy of planting. We are here to plant ideas. Some will germinate, some won't. Some of these will go on and become projects and initiatives. Some of these will become successful, others won't. Those that aren't successful may not be because they were bad ideas but perhaps not at the right time.
5. Decline can be a hard thing to measure, especially when you are in the midst of it. (page 37). How true this is of businesses, of countries, of peoples? And even, of our own selves.
6. “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. I became a mother, but I still have a lot to learn from and give to my children.  I became a wife, but I continue to adapt to and be humbled by what it means to truly love and make a life with another person. I have become, by certain measures, a person of power, and yet there are moments still when I feel insecure or unheard.” This last one rocked for me. Even for those of us who have been working for 20 over years, it remains true. Those of us who are parents need to be careful of poorly steering our children when we ask them 'what do they want to become?'. Life is Becoming.