Power

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
Aristotle

We tend to think of power in terms of what we can do. If we have a lot of power, that enables us to do a lot of things. We tend to see it as a kind of strength that gives us more choices as to what we can accomplish. We beleive our true power is in accomplishing, in doing. We are focused on succeeding, often on succeeding more than everyone else. Power is even seen sometimes as a way of controlling other people by not allowing them to exersise their own power. But power is not just about what we can do.

It takes just as much power to not do something as it does to do it. It takes power to restrain yourself, to resist temptation. It takes power to "just say no". For a teenager, it requires perhaps even more power to refuse to have sex than it does to go along with it. It takes a lot of strength. Sometimes succeeding does not mean doing whatever you want to do. Sometimes succeeding means staying back and doing nothing, because sometimes going ahead and taking action will cause you more harm than good in the future.

For everything we think and do, we have a choice. Do we accept the beleif and do the action in this situation, or do we not? What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do. Our true power lies in making an intelligent choice as to which way to go. It lies in not being influenced by what other people want or expect from us when that runs counter to our own intuition about what we should do. It lies in knowing that sometimes doing nothing, or doing the opposite of what other people are telling us to do, is the choice that will benefit us the most. We always have the power to say no instead of yes. We always have the choice.