For me and Michelle, this visit has therefore held special meaning. Throughout my life, including my work as a young man on behalf of the urban poor, I have always found inspiration in the life of Gandhiji and in his simple and profound lesson to be the change we seek in the world. And just as he summoned Indians to seek their destiny, he influenced champions of equality in my own country, including a young Martin Luther King
Even if you follow other people's advice and model successful people and their blueprints, you will still fail if you don't have confidence in yourself. Everything - absolutely everything - starts with you.
You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.
Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
The incredible story of progress that is America has always been built by those who ask why, what if, and why not. Our schools must begin instilling that wonder in our children again so that their generation will unite around the next great project of our time, whether it be declaring America energy independent or launching the next great technological revolution.