Excuse Me While I Pull The Plug On Your Power Trip

There is a pretty good chance that to someone, you are Larger Than Life. Your children, your students, your employees, your customers, your clients, your patients, your whomever. Someone looks up to you. Someone needs you, maybe even desperately needs you. Someone is depending upon your knowledge, your experience, your compassion, your ability to open doors that he or she can't open. Perhaps the outcome of someones life depends largely on how you rise (or fail to rise) to the challenge of your position. Perhaps you have just one or two chances to change someones life, or perhaps your position is such that many lives can be positively influenced by you daily. Perhaps a few words that come out of your mouth, and how they come out of your mouth, can either make someones day, give them hope and let them rest easy, or send them spiraling to the lowest depths of depression, fear, and despair.

So. Be honest. Do you abuse your power?

Perhaps sometimes you don't have a choice regarding what you say, but sometimes you do. And the delivery is always your choice. So even if you must deliver bad news, you can choose to do it kindly. And even if you have the capability to, at your whim and for no good reason, severely complicate someones life...doesn't mean you should go ahead and do it.


Because I (perhaps naively) believe in the basic goodness of humankind in general, I have to also believe that people simply fall into negative patterns, maybe gradually and unintentionally, and don't realize what complete and utter jerks they are being when they randomly mess with people's lives.  Because  how can someone consciously know that he or she is ignoring someone or belittling someone or demeaning someone or not taking someones (very real) concerns seriously, and still get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and happily go about the day? There can't be as many purely evil people in this world as there are people who regularly send wrecking balls into the lives of others, just because they can. These have to be just regular people, people like me and you; misguided and forgetful of their impact.


Slow down and examine yourself. Think before you speak. Remember that what comes out so easily may not be easily forgotten by your target. Remember that one moment of laziness or rudeness or meanness on your part could be the breaking point for someone else. Be vigilantly cognizant of your impact on others. Uncle Ben said it best when he told Peter Parker, "With great power comes great responsibility." Use your power wisely.