MICHELLE OBAMA Opens Up On Her 8 Years In The White House: "We Know Too Much."

Obama says some friends aren't ready for a life that diverges from where you came from, and carrying them can slow you down. She notes the survivor's remorse that comes with it and says that once at the top you can reach back and pull others up.

She tells her daughters to keep their aperture wide and trust their gut, since she would rather risk disappointment than miss someone special. When people show who they are and it isn't working, she says to cut it quickly.

Obama argues humans haven't evolved to absorb constant information and that incomplete, biased information makes people feel more panicked. She says crime and war rates are lowest now but people don't feel it, and she links the overload to depression among young people.

She says knitting, tennis and exercise work like meditation by shutting down her thinking. Making something real, however small, counters the hopelessness of trying to fix everything at a big scale.

She says rough patches aren't quit-worthy in themselves, that sustaining a marriage is choosing to figure it out, and that she learned she must own her own happiness and get some needs met by girlfriends. She names criminality and abuse as objective reasons to leave and says everyone should define their own non-negotiables.