President Bill Clinton left the White House on January 20, 2001 and entered a new phase of his life and career – as a private citizen.
His new book, Citizen: My life after the White Houseout Nov. 19 from Alfred A. Knopf, is the former president’s first-person account of the years that followed. During those years, he began public service and advocacy, helping people in India and Haiti, Indonesia and Louisiana, Northern Ireland and South Africa and almost everywhere in between, all while supporting wife Hillary Clinton in her career as senator, secretary of state and presidential candidate.
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Looking back on the decades since he left office, Clinton, 78, jokes that at first he “felt lost whenever I walked into a room because no one played a song to mark my arrival.” But in reality, he tells PEOPLE the change was welcome because it allowed him to focus on what matters most: the human element. In the book, he sets the maxim: “live in the present, for the future”.
Bill Clinton’s ‘Citizen’.
Knopf
“You have to think about what you’re going to do today and what’s going to help tomorrow. I just decided that I’m going to think like that all the time: What can I do today? How can I move the law toward something I care about?” he says, about the principle that has dictated his life since then.
Seasoned with the stories of the people he met along the way — from his former teachers to Haitian artists and fellow public figures — Citizen it also keeps that focus front and center. And he invites his readers to do the same, regardless of their sphere of influence.
“It’s so easy, especially when you’re in politics, but it’s also easy if you’re overwhelmed with raising kids or if you’re overwhelmed with whatever else is going on in your life to forget that at the core of all your interactions, there are people involved,” Clinton explains. “And that human nature tends to repeat itself over centuries and millennia. We only get shiny new toys to do what we were predisposed to do before we died.”
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The importance of taking human nature into account was not lost on the former president, whose book also deals with the concept of “two Americas” and the political divisions that existed before the country existed.
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Bill Clinton attends the annual charity day hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald and The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund on September 11, 2023 in New York City.
Eugene Gologursky/Getty
“There are other people who believe that all that matters is politics,” he admits. “And whoever you are, you’re only worth depending on whose side you’re on… Our differences make life more interesting, but it’s only possible to have a positive impact when our shared humanity is more important.”
His advice going forward? “I think the trick will be to continue to stand up for what you believe in, but do it with an outstretched hand, not a clenched fist,” Clinton advises. “Deep down, most people want the same thing… It’s pretty much a war we’re all fighting.”
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Citizen: My life after the White House by Bill Clinton is available now, wherever books are sold.
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Source: HIS Education