5 Important Life Lessons from Barack Obama

All around the world, headlines carried Barack Obama’s historic win when he was declared the 44th president of the United States of America. For a lot of people, Obama’s victory didn’t only signify his own. As the first African-American leader of a country with a harsh history of racial apartheid, his win ushered in a new era for American society.

As the US remains to be the planet’s lone superpower capable of influencing global affairs, it is easy to understand the worldwide elation that followed his win. He single-handedly initiated changing how the world viewed the US and Americans.

However, a deeper knowledge of Obama’s life will reveal that his struggle had been as personal as much as it was political. His rise from humble beginnings to become perhaps one of the most highly anticipated occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is rife with lessons everyday people can learn from.

Lesson no. 1: Dream big

Obama was born in Hawaii to parents who met at the University of Hawaii. He was an offspring of an interracial marriage: his father was raised in a small Kenyan village and his mother was similarly a small-town Kansas girl. When his father eventually returned to Kenya, he stayed in Hawaii with his mother. When he turned 6, he moved to Indonesia and attended grade school at the Southeast Asian country.

When Obama was in third grade, he wrote an essay detailing his dream of some day becoming president. The young Obama said his dream was borne out of a desire to make everybody happy. According to his teacher, he wasn’t sure which country Obama had in mind. Regardless, the interesting anecdote reveals the beginning of Obama’s vision that turned out to be around 40 years in the making but nevertheless bore fruit.

A lot of children probably wrote similarly themed essays. Yet while dreaming big is a prerequisite in achieving big, the road between the two is never one of certainty.

Lesson no. 2: Roads don’t define destinations

Growing up, Obama barely saw his father. Early on, he realized that something was different about his parents. In his memoir, he wrote that he noticed that his father was “black as pitch” and his mother was “white as milk.” While it never occurred to him that there was something unique about his multicultural lineage, he was aware of the social perceptions that said otherwise. His parents separated when he was 2 and they eventually divorced.

To deal with these questions, Obama admitted that he became addicted to alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years. Later on, he would call this his greatest moral failure.

Yet rather than let these indiscretions get the better of him and define his youth, Obama was able to put these behind and instead explore his special heritage. Some of his fellow students at the Hawaiian school he attended said he tried to associate with his fellow African-American students to learn more. He later wrote that this helped shape his values and became “an integral part” of how he would see the world.

Obama went on from being a typical teenage delinquent to specialize in international relations at Columbia College in New York.

Lesson no. 3: Good education goes a long way

From Hawaii to Indonesia, Los Angeles to New York, Obama moved around a lot growing up. But not once did he ever consider giving up school. It was his grandmother, who died shortly before he was proclaimed president, who instilled the importance of education on young Obama.

Growing up with her while his mother traveled the world, Obama cited her efforts when he accepted the Democratic Party nomination. “She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life,” he said. Obama went on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and become the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

By no means living a comfortable life, Obama could have very well blamed his family’s financial inadequacies and troubled childhood to not go through school. However, it’s clear that settling and giving up aren’t part of Obama’s philosophy. He always found ways to defy the odds and seek better things for himself. In this case, he found education as the key. His wife Michelle even said—perhaps half in jest—that they just finished paying off college loans a few weeks before the campaign started.

Lesson no. 4: Nothing is impossible

Obama’s life represented obstacles that are as common as sand in a desert. In many ways, his most renowned campaign slogan echoed his attitude in confronting them: yes, we can. A product of a broken family who barely saw his father and who grew up with his maternal grandmother, Obama didn’t let family problems trouble his childhood.

A colored young man who grew up in a society that has stereotypically confined him to a life of gangs and misdemeanors, he rose above the label and aspired for something better. The son of a man who grew up herding goats in Kenya and the grandson of a domestic servant to the British, Obama went on to become the leader of the free world.

Clearly, Obama could’ve easily blamed these things, factors beyond his control, for not achieving anything in life. Yet what he did was take advantage of the obstacles—stand on them even—to be constantly reminded that while life is harsh, it is not unfair.

Lesson no. 5: You always have a choice

What’s clear from these lessons fleshed out of Obama’s life is one thing: you always have a choice. Languishing into a middling life is always a tempting option. Yet the fact that is easy means it also brings mediocre results. Choosing such path will hardly bring you anything notable, much less the presidency of the United States of America.

From how Obama lived his life, there is something more to the booming oratorical voice and the lofty ideals in his speeches. The words ring true precisely because he has lived them.

Change is one of the most overused words in politics and life in general. It becomes hollow if not preceded by decisive action. As Americans, especially the younger generation, look up to Obama with the highest expectations, it’s important to realize that far more than being the first man of color to occupy the White House, he stands for something bigger than you or me. It’s a fundamental shift in paradigm that some say mark the true beginning of the 21st century for all of us.

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