With long braids and a spectacular wardrobe, Michelle Obama is touring with her second book. That’s enough to make her a fashion icon. But she becomes a role model thanks to the many clever thoughts in “The Light in Us”.
How she look! No seriously. How she looks now! That hair, that wardrobe. Everything is even cooler, stronger, funnier. Even freer. But from the front. I have many female role models. For example, the girlfriend who pushes me to move more and wants to teach me how to do a headstand. The Frollegin, who also or especially on cloudy days attaches something glittering to her lapel and always reminds me not to just want to be discreet. Artists of all kinds. Authors and everyday heroes. And her of course. The wife of the 44th President of the United States, former First Lady Michelle Obama.
It was fun to watch her, as a resident of the White House, doing things very differently than her predecessors. How she opened this house, wasn’t afraid to hug the world and didn’t even stop at the Queen, just because the rules actually wanted it and the press found food afterwards. (Lilibeth herself stayed cool, which in turn made her a role model.) One suspected that it was not easy for her to remain herself in the merciless political establishment. It was confirmed in her first book “Becoming”.
At the latest with this book, Mrs. Obama had me completely. Not only her life story, this unbelievable rise to the top address in the USA, but above all how she tells it, cast a spell on me, like countless other readers. Clear, accessible language, not afraid to list your own failures, delicately or bluntly, depending on what was needed at the time. Whoever dreamed of a US President Michelle Obama, after reading it was clear: Not with this woman. She’s had enough of politics at this level, she’s lent us her husband for eight years, that’ll have to do.
Her second book starts right there and was written during the pandemic. It’s about fears and tools that you can put together to get through this world better. For example, knitting needles to simply work away his restlessness. (Works, by the way.) And it’s about empathy and openness. Is it worth opening up to new people and topics? Changing your perspective? Yes, says Michelle Obama and reveals how many of her own fears she has to overcome in order to tackle new tasks and conquer new terrain. She can use a very simple example to show what you can miss if you don’t get over yourself: If she had given in to her fear of change, her Barack would never have become US President, she could have stopped him at any time. But in return she needed her mom as a tool, as her support and crutch, which she packed with her when the family moved to the White House.
“(…) My mother tends to let small pearls of wisdom flow into everyday conversation. (…) It tends to be sober thoughts that just slip out of her hands, almost like coins falling out of her pocket . For years now I have been collecting and stuffing these coins into my pockets, using them as a guide and a tool to calm my own doubts and concerns as a mother.” (Excerpt from “The Light in Us” and one of many examples of the beautiful language images)
“All well and good”, many might think. A woman enjoys life, has nothing left to miss materially, is a kind of pop star and good at spreading simple messages. “When they go low, we go high,” and so on. Isn’t it all a bit easy? Shouldn’t that be viewed more critically?
Yes, many of these sayings are striking and are printed on T-shirts in a trendy way. And yes, if you just buy a hat with the slogan, you make it easy on yourself. However, if you actually try not to give in to your first impulses when faced with provocations and annoyances, that is one of the hardest exercises of all. It takes work to actually stand up for others and not just like posts on social media. It takes courage to poke fun at yourself and also cover the less glamorous moments. But all of this is also the key to motivating others to join in, open up and think together about how to do things better.
My personal role models impress me less with perfection and more with how they manage in this chaotic, far from perfect world. Then I cut off a slice of courage and commitment here, a slice of joie de vivre there and maybe a touch of cheerful self-confidence and chutzpah there. In the case of Michelle, there is also the ability to put the result of her reflections on the world into clear, unpretentious words. (By the way, I’m celebrating whoever helped her make the lyrics so smooth.)
Because the stories are just human, everyone can take something different away from Michelle Obama’s stories. One is the realization that even a charming, intellectual, handsome husband like Barack Obama can get on his own wife’s nerves for years. Others will recognize the rocky path described if you are one of the first in the family to set off on the path to social advancement without any useful network. The third knows the inexorable inner voice that always reproaches you for your own mistakes. With all these little reports about herself or others, Michelle Obama fulfills the task she has set herself: to give everyone the spark they need to reignite their own ambitions. If there was a star cut and I would hang something like that on my walls, Michelle would wallpaper my living room.
“You might walk all the way up to a mountain peak, no matter which one you want to climb, a job, a school, a special occasion (…). And when you arrive exhausted and sweating at the top with the beautiful view, meet you are always guaranteed a luxury air-conditioned coach and a group of people who made no effort but were driven straight up an access road.” (Excerpt from “The light in us”) Do you feel the same about the lyrics?
