Power

A few months ago, I asked my dad why he thought that everybody wants money so badly.  It sounds like a ridiculously simple question for an adult to be consulting her father about.  However, as an adult, I find that I'm constantly being led by my experiences back to the most fundamental questions.  At this point, I was feeling quite confused about why we are all scrambling around, pushing each other out of the way and ruining the natural environment that provides for our livelihoods in order to simply accumulate more money.  What's the meaning of it?

When I asked the question, I had been living here in Athens, Greece, for a while and I was feeling quite discouraged by how much inequality and destitution I was seeing every day.  I recognized this discouragement as coming from my lack of understanding of the situation.  So, I decided to seek out some deeper understanding. 
I knew that all of these illegal immigrants that I see in Athens every day, selling things off of the streets, cleaning windshields at stop lights, digging through trash bins, running from the police; I knew that they are all here because of one or both of these reasons:

1. They are fleeing horrible situations in their home countries.
2. They are trying to make money to send home.

I realized that it all revolves around money.  Even for those who were fleeing their horrible situations, it was due to global and/or local inequality.  The elites of their home countries are keeping the money from the rest of the population.  Developed countries are taking resources from the developing countries.  There are many factors that feed into it, but in the end it all comes down to money.  They are fleeing to places that might give them a chance for a better quality of life.

When I was living in China, I saw first hand that the world is in pursuit of the American Dream.  This means that much of the global population wants enough money to live the lifestyles they've seen in Hollywood films.  They want to have a big house, a nice car, a green yard in the back, lots of food (especially meat)... they want that cozy, happy life they've seen or heard about.  So, I know that a lot of people are illegally immigrating for this reason, too.  They don't only want marginally better lives, they want the "good life". 

However, we know by now that they can't have it.  There simply aren't enough resources in the world to provide the American Dream lifestyle to all 6.8 billion of us.  We don't live a one-planet lifestyle.  Furthermore, it's become apparent that money doesn't make you happy, anyways.

In fact, I think it's becoming more and more evident that the American Dream is a sham.  It didn't work.  Half of the marriages in the US end in divorce and 10% of Americans are on antidepressant medication, most of the others are self-medicating in one way or another.  There are constant rises in crime, violence and inequality.  Maybe the people in developing nations haven't gotten to the level of economic accumulation where they realize that money doesn't equate with happiness, but Americans (as a whole) have reached that point.  Yet, people in every country of the world, even Americans, still seem to want more and more money.  Why?

My dad's answer?  Power.  He said, "They don't think that money will make them happy.  Why they really want it is because money is power.  If you have more money, you can tell more people what to do. If you have less, more people are telling you what to do."

That was incredibly insightful to me.  Yes.  Power.

But (I know, I'm like a four year old), what is power? 

A book that I'm reading right now gives a very enlightened answer to this question.  The book's title is a bit cheesy (it has "self-help" written all over it), but hear me out because it's a wonderful observation about our world.  The book is Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power , by Gary Zukav.  In it, he says that there are two different kinds of power being exercised by people today: external power and authentic power.  External power is seeking to control the things, situations and people around you.  Authentic power is being able to control your actions by knowing your intentions. 

Let's deal with the first, external power.  Seeking to control things, situations and people around you.  Yep, sounds like money already.  The interesting thing is that, as sages throughout the years have pointed out, nobody can control you if you don't let them.  Nothing can truly be taken from you, unless it wasn't really yours to begin with.  This, then, also means that a person cannot truly control others.  Even in such horrific, extreme situations as prison camps and the likes, people can exert power over you, but only to an extent. They can keep you locked up. But they cannot take away your dignity, your will or who you are; the things that are a person's essence. That is all yours and can only be yours. In fact, this limit of external power is clearly demonstrated through the success of non-violent protests and civil disobedience, promoted by such great people as Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

In everyday situations, people can allow you to influence them or not, but you cannot control a person if they don't let you.  Likewise, we cannot control situations.  Maybe you plan everything in your life meticulously, so as to have control.  However, we all know that unexpected things are always happening, life is unpredictable and plans get ruined all the time.  So, in this light, it seems that the pursuit of money in order to gain external control is pretty much a waste of time.  Since you'll never be able to have true power over things external to yourself.  You can influence people if they let you, using your wealth and status. But they can just as easily change their minds the next day, which brings us to the other type of power that Gary points out.

In my posts about intentions and love vs. fear, I discuss the idea of authentic power.  I don't refer to it as such, but I think Gary gives it a good name.  Authentic power is the ability to control the way you act, out of a deeper understanding of your emotions and intentions.  It is very different from repressing your emotions and actions because someone told you to or because you were taught that something is immoral.  It's actually understanding where inside yourself the action is coming from.  In this way you take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and actions.  And with that responsibility comes an incredible sense of empowerment.  You can now choose to respond appropriately to situations and people rather than react irrationally, often hurting yourself and/or others.  That's one of the major differences between external power and authentic power.  External power usually reacts carelessly, and sometimes even throws temper tantrums.  While authentic power pauses, thinks about what to do next and responds, in full control of its emotions and actions.

I've also found in my life's experiences that people who seek external power over others and the world around them are often trying to compensate for the lack of power they have over themselves.  They, of course, are not conscious of this, but it is very often the case.  It was the case with me.  Before I went to therapy, I was tangled up in all kinds of unhealthy relationships.  I was seeking external power and so were a lot of the people in my life.  So, we played endless games of passive-aggressive manipulation and irrationally reacting to each other.  Needless to say, there was a lot of unnecessary, painful drama going on in my life. 

Talks with my therapist (who just acted as a mirror, letting me bounce my thoughts and feelings off of her) revealed that I felt completely powerless over my own emotions.  I felt completely powerless over my life.  And I was acting mostly out of fear.  I had little or no understanding of where my emotions were coming from, so I blamed them on others.  And that's why I tried to control others.  But I never felt in control.  I felt utterly helpless.  I found out, though, that I could have control over my life.  I could draw my personal boundaries and communicate them to the people in my life in order to create healthy relationships.  But I could only draw my boundaries if I knew what I wanted and if I knew who I was.  I could only have control over my emotions if I knew where inside me they were coming from.  Thus, I started my journey of self-analysis.  The journey inward.  My journey to authentic power. 

By the way, even if the title sounds cheesy, if you were moved by this post, I would highly recommend reading Zukav's book.