Tulsi Gabbard

And I knew from a relatively young age that I wanted to do that with my life, to be of service to God and to be of service to others.

Not once did the thought of politics cross my mind.

I am the fourth of five kids and by far of the five kids in our family.

an introvert and shy, using the word shy puts it mildly.

My younger, I just was like, I don't wanna talk to strangers.

Answering the phone at our house was like, no, I don't know who's gonna be on the other line.

I don't wanna talk to them.

my sister, total extrovert, younger sister, I would make her, like mom says, hey, did you guys go to the grocery store and pick up some milk or whatever?

And I would just make her go talk to the clerk.

I just was like, I had my friends and I'm good.

And so the idea of, you know, I hated cameras.

My dad with his little like, you know, home movie camera.

I literally ran away from the camera at every chance I got.

And so the idea of giving a speech or going on TV or any of that stuff, it literally never crossed my mind.

The other really formative experience was, and really I can only attribute this to God, is I was probably 11 or 12 years old, and I had this realization, and I remember just sitting in this room, I was by myself, and I had this realization that...

life is very short and I knew I had this powerful feeling of knowing in a visceral way that, you know, I could die at any time.

And so the idea of like, oh, well, you know, you've got your whole life ahead of you.

I didn't feel that way because I didn't know.

Maybe.

Maybe not.