“It’s possible, in fact, that during our short meeting the college counselor said things to me that might have been positive and helpful, but I recall none of it. Because rightly or wrongly, I got stuck on one single sentence the woman uttered. “I’m not sure,” she said, giving me a perfunctory, patronizing smile, “that you’re Princeton material.” Her judgment was as swift as it was dismissive, probably based on a quick-glance calculus involving my grades and test scores. It was some version, I imagine, of what this woman did all day long and with practiced efficiency, telling seniors where they did and didn’t belong. I’m sure she figured she was only being realistic. I doubt that she gave our conversation another thought. But as I’ve said, failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result. And for me, it felt like that’s exactly what she was planting—a suggestion of failure long before I’d even tried to succeed. She was telling me to lower my sights, which was the absolute reverse of every last thing my parents had ever told me. Had I decided to believe her, her pronouncement would have toppled my confidence all over again, reviving the old thrum of not enough, not enough.”¹
This story really struck a chord with me especially that feeling at times of not enough. But what I loved more than anything was her attitude, “…failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.” Wow. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this or not. But I know times where things have gone horribly wrong, and I’ve “failed”, the nagging feeling of failure was there long before I ever failed.
"Failure is a feeling long before it's an actual result."@MichelleObama #Becoming #becomingmichelleobama
— Vigilant Poster Girl ✊🏻 ❤️ (@girl_vigilant) November 24, 2018
I think it all has to do with mind-set and the actions you take when you think you are going to fail. Or should I say the actions you don’t take when you think you are going to fail. When you believe in yourself, really believe in yourself, you give yourself the opportunity to do everything necessary to get there. You hold your shoulders back. You look for ways to make things happen instead of letting the world go dark around you inhibiting your way.
That is where faith comes in. Faith is believing before things ever seem possible. Faith is knowing there is a way when there seems to be no way. But just because there is no way to be seen does not mean that it does not exist. Belief pushes you to work harder because you know that it is possible. When I was living in Tulsa, before moving to Nashville, I had a scripture that I hung on my door. It helped me kept my sights on my dreams. “Faith without works is dead.”² I think today I’ll hang Michelle’s quote along with that scripture on my bathroom mirror to remind myself that I to was made to become fearless.
Sarah Jackson
Vigilant Poster Girl
Read Becoming by Michelle Obama along with us here.
Reference:
- Obama, Michelle. Becoming (pp. 65-66). Crown. Kindle Edition.
- Title of scriptures taken from James 2: 14-26 ESV
Influenced by songwriters like Lucinda Williams, Roseanne Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and Dar Williams, Sarah Popejoy’s songs blend storytelling with an Americana leaning groove. After living in Nashville for 10 years, Sarah moved back home to Tulsa, what Rolling Stone calls the next Austin, where she is producing her 3rd studio album called “The Oklahoma Storyteller”. Most of the album has been recorded at the newly renovated, world-class studio, The Church Studio, in Tulsa, Oklahoma which was previously owned by Leon Russell. All songs on the new album are written by Mrs. Popejoy, a previous award winner of the American Songwriter Magazine Lyric Contest and The Billboard Song Contest.
The intersections of I-40, The King of Trails (Highway 75), and the largest stretch of Route 66, Oklahoma figuratively and literally is the crossroads of the American Story. It was the end of the trail for many indigenous people during America's dark history of forced removal, birthplace of one of the biggest heroes of America's pastime, home to the struggles of those who lived and breathed the Dust Bowl, home of some of the biggest trendsetting influencers in modern American music, and the site of the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. This is why the first album in The Oklahoma Storyteller series, is called, "The Oklahoma Storyteller: Crossroads of the American Story", set to be released Summer of 2024.
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