American author Alice Walker once wrote, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” The simple fact Alice is telling us is that all power arrives from within. You might disagree. Faced with oppressive living, we can point to a lot of powerful causes and forces at work in our own lives and throughout society. They seem designed, deemed, and destined to take our power, keep us from power, or repress our power. And to some extent, they are.
But that’s not the beginning and end of it. Instead, YOU are. You have inherent power in you from the day you are born until the day you die. You have abilities, capabilities, capacities, and realities that you don’t realize every single day. Too many self-help gurus have lavished us with the sense that we can buy these capabilities, while others would have us think they have the silver bullet for our personal, professional, social, cultural, economic, educational, and political problems. They don’t.
Nobody else can steal your power from you. Nobody else can solve your problems for you. That much is true. Now, you can look to others for support and rely on others. You can also find how others repress or detract from your power. But nobody can fix your life- that’s your job.
So if you’re concerned about your job, get busy and change it. If you don’t like your love relationship, do something about it. If you look around you and see that you’re surrounded by bad kids, a broke down car, an underpaying job, unpaid taxes, or a leaky facet, only one person can change do something about all that right now. YOU. You have the power right now. Get Engaged to Find Out How.
CommonAction is available to train, speak, and share about this topic and many others. Contact me to talk about the possibilities by emailing adam@commonaction.org or calling (360)489-9680.
Adam F.C. Fletcher 