The Lure of Power

Power, a very vague term. What do you think of when you think of power? Riches, Gold, controlling others, these are all very valid suggestions. However, in my opinion power is bait for a driving force. It is the bait for a driving force for people to get to the top.

There are 2 ways in which people interpret this driving force. The first one is the obvious way which is climb up the ladder, one step at a time, working hard, being determined, and being sincere to you and those around. Then there’s the other type. In which people go from the bottom of the ladder to the top without taking a single step, which doesn’t take a genius to figure that they achieve this through immoral or disapproved ways.

First of all, why do humans want power so badly? There may be a range of reasons for this, but according to new research, it stems down to an insecurity. An insecurity of being dominated and an insecurity of not reaching your highest potential. Doesn’t that sound ironic to you? People try to achieve power because they are insecure of others having power over them. Human biology means that we don’t like to see someone do better than us. This is because in hunter gatherers time if someone wasn’t performing as well as the others in their tribe, they would be ditched by the tribe, resulting in certain death. So we want to go any means to be better than others.

When you read this title, the first that must have come to most of your minds is the parasitic people who try and achieve power. Thinking about this may give you a negative perception of power. However let me assure you that power is a good thing, if it doesn’t fall into the wrong hand. Without power we would be living in a disorganised society. Just think for a minute, if we had no government, no police, no lawyers, no one to lead you, would our country be this organised. The answer is no. A second reason for why power is a good thing is that the vast majority of people try to achieve power the hard way, which is the right way. Imagine that after you become employed there is no other position to strive for, no other position to encourage you to work a t you best. You might fail to admit it, but power brings the best out of all of us.

Okay, let’s finally talk about what you’re really here for. I will admit it, power can bring the best out of some people, but the worst out of others too. This idea of going to any extremes to get power has fascinated humans for decades. For example the famous literary text Macbeth involves Macbeth killing a king who trusted him fully in order to achieve power. It’s not just literature, religions also have many principles that focus on it. For example in Buddhism one of the main things a Buddhism has to do to achieve the final state of enlightenment to is stop all craving and desires, which can be applied in the context of power. People that try and achieve power through these means are general those who are under-confident in themselves, who believe that they can’t catch up to those around them, that they have to cheat the natural order to become more successful. If there is another thing that is always depicted however, it is that those who achieve power through wrong means will never have pure happiness because of 2 reasons:

1.      They will always be paranoid about someone finding out about their dirty means.

2.      They will always know internally that they do not deserve to truly be in that position.

So, what is the point of this article. Well, hopefully after reading this article you have gained a deeper understanding and insight into the mysterious idea of power, what it is, why people want it, and the good and bad about it. Thank you for reading.

By Jitin Sanapala 9H