Power is a thing, directionless, meaningless unless there is someone to direct it and give it value. Empower is an action that creates change for the better. The word power has historically many negative associations, and yet there is so much evidence of it being used benevolently. It seems strange that two words can be so related and yet come to mean such different things.
What really matters is that a person should understand the meaning of responsibility and accountability. Without this understanding, everything goes wrong. Those that think they aren’t answerable for their behaviour are slaves to power while those that know that they are answerable and want to be, have power in check, are released by it and therefore can use it constructively instead of being used by it.
We can’t take power with us when we die. We can only leave behind some influence on the world in the form of others we have touched or developed. So those concerned with acquiring power purely for its own sake take the short-term view, believing that all that matters occurs during their lifetime, believing that people are merely useful. Their main intention is to serve and build self, believing that they are essentially only responsible for themselves, that they are the centre of their lives and that power is a miracle drug that can give them authentic sense of self and identity. Those with the long term view see power as a useful resource, while they see people as essential and indispensable. They see that people are not for the taking but that opportunities to serve others are. They see service as reward in itself, not a way of acquiring credits.
Power often makes a person lonely because it isolates him or her. Those that just want it, behave from a place of fear, believing everyone must want a bit of their power, so they hoard and defend it. Those who empower others have the gratification of feeling that they belong to a group or community because they have invested in it, even if that community is made up of just two. They invest in others – with time, love or money – because essentially they don’t need power themselves. They are free enough and sure enough of their own worth not to need external standards of measurement. They needn’t power dress or own a powerful car or have titles of power because in their souls they know that they are already titans, kings and queens. Those, that want power and need to show that they have it, in reality have nothing, while those that wish to empower others already have everything they need. The power-mongers need to be seen, while the empowering types want only the effect of their action to be seen in others’ growth. Power never really compensates for a lack of character or moral fibre although desperation drives people to continue with this belief. In fact, power in people’s hands highlights their quality or their lack of it. In the hands of a selfish, egotistical person it turns toxic and feeds on that person, while in the hands of a quality person the power moves outwards, energising and empowering.
What matters isn’t success, but what we do with it. What matters isn’t money, knowledge, skill, resources, love, loyalty or wisdom but what we do with these things. Power is a means to an end, not merely an end in itself. Power is not the goal but a world where everyone feels they have a rightful place in the sun, where everyone has an opportunity to make a contribution in whatever sphere suits them, where everyone has a chance to achieve to their very best. Someone who holds onto his or her power is like an eclipsed sun: no one really feels the benefit of their energy. Those that let go and share their power are like brightly shining suns, fully realised, having an exponential impact on others, energising all those who are touched by their rays. The global status quo doesn’t represent conditions conducive to achieving this goal, so we must find ways to move from a place of hating or pandering to those with power to a place of empowering the weak, the talented, the aspiring and the determined.
Courage, conscience and will can transform power into goodness. Courage is needed to resist the powerful moral mainstream, to move away from what is convenient and normal but not right, towards that which the moral imperative deems necessary but has not yet been done, or at least not in enough quantity. A conscience is needed to know that we are interdependent and that this interdependence demands action of us, action that harnesses the energy inherent in our connectedness. Finally there is needed a will, to commit to this realisation by turning it into a practical reality. These are the catalysts that transform power into empowering action.
