In the documentary “Becoming,” about Michelle Obama’s tour promoting her book of the same name, there is a scene where the former first lady is meeting with a group of female high school students. The students have been carefully selected for this special opportunity to meet personally with one of the most inspiring women of the 21st century. 

One young woman expresses that she is unsure of why she was selected. According to her, her peers are all very involved with clubs and extracurricular activities. She only has time for one club. Michelle asks why. Because she has to pick up her younger siblings from school, take the city bus home, clean, cook, tutor her siblings and finally attend to her own academic obligations. There is simply no time for anything else.

“And she wonders why she’s here,” Michelle says in awe. “That is why you’re here. That is your story. Your power. Everything that is ordinary to you is not.”

When I first saw this scene I was reminded of my younger self. Someone who thought he had nothing to say, no story to tell, who was stuck in the seeming banality of all he had ever known.

I remember being very young, maybe 6 or 7, and desperately wanting to write. I would write my name over and over again. I would read every street sign and label I came across. I would use my lita’s white board and dry erase markers and pretend to teach. These games while fun always left me feeling frustrated. I had nothing to write about, nothing to teach.

It would take me years to find my voice. And then more years to figure out what I should use it to say.

In a time of voicelessness, when virtually every member of society has something they would like to change about the world and yet find themselves unable to rise above the white noise of presidential tweets and Kardashian scandals, we all need to find our voices more than ever.

Doing so is not only an indispensable part of our individual development but also a moral imperative.

Using our voices to tell our stories has untold power. People who come after us and follow in our footsteps need to see and hear themselves in our stories.

As James Baldwin wrote “You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered it happened 100 years ago to Dostoevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that they are alone.”

That is the power of your voice. Despite his brilliance, Dostoevsky could not experience the complete breadth of human life. Every story is unique, as unique as every person is.

You are needed. Your voice is needed to diversify the canon – to inspire yourself and those around you.

Never doubt the power of words. Yes, actions are powerful – protest, policy, advocacy – these things are necessary.

But if you are literate you have a power that can never be taken from you. And a responsibility to use that power.

Let me repeat, never doubt the power of words.

Language is in my opinion the single greatest invention in all of history. It is the foundation, the prerequisite and the matter of every subsequent human development.

Toni Morrison in the documentary “The Pieces I Am” recalls when she first realized the power of language.

Before she could read, her sister and her would copy words they saw with a stick on the sidewalk. One day they saw a word they did not recognize. They began to write it on the sidewalk. They got as far as f-u-c before Morrison’s mother ran out of the house screaming with a mop bucket and ordered them to remove the writing.

Young Morrison did not know what the word meant. But she understood that if a single word could cause her mother to lose her composure, the language must be powerful.

As an adult in full possession of her formidable literary powers, Morrison was informed by a state penitentiary that her book “Song of Solomon” had been banned as authorities thought it would incite a riot if read by the prisoners.

Words have power.

In her own words Morrison said “We die. That may be the meaning of our life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

If you died today, what would be the measure of your life?

Do not acquiesce to confinement, to limits. Keep speaking and reading and writing no matter if anyone is paying attention to you. You define the dimensions of your existence. The measure of your life.

The game of language is always win win. The more space you take for yourself, the bigger and louder you say “I am here” then the more space you generate for others.

Begin today. With a kind word. An indignant word. With reading this piece more than once. With telling just one small facet of your story whether in a tweet or in a letter to the editor.

Accept only the most expansive version of your life possible.

Speak it into existence.