The Business of Life and the Illusion of Power

Affirmation: I walk through this life with an inner power that cannot be taken, traded, or diminished.


Life, for all its twists and turns, is a journey. Yes, it sounds cliché. But clichés only become clichés because they hold a truth we keep circling back to. From the moment we arrive on this earth until the moment we leave it, we are moving—becoming—unfolding. And somewhere along the way, we get tricked into believing that the journey is about accumulating power or accumulating things.
But is it?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately: how easily we confuse power with dominance, or success with the size of our possessions. How often we sabotage ourselves and others in the name of “getting ahead,” without ever asking where exactly we’re heading.
Growing up, my grandmother had her own way of cutting through the noise. Every evening at 7 p.m., the entire house had to go silent because the news was on. She would sit there, eyes fixed on the screen, talking back to the television as if the anchors and politicians could hear her.
One of her favourite lines—delivered with a mix of scolding and amusement—was:
“Power? What power do you have? Can you stop a tornado? A hurricane? Can you make the sun or moon shine? You have no power!”
Then she would turn to us, the grandchildren, and say:
“Don’t let them fool you into believing they have power and you don’t.”
We used to laugh at her. Pretend to watch the news. Mimic her tone. We didn’t understand then. But as we got older, her words started to land differently. They started to make sense.
Because what she was really saying was this:
Power is not external.
Power is not the stuff you collect.
Power is not the title you hold.
Power is innate.
Power is how you choose to show up.
Power is what you do with what you have.
Accumulating things might say something about your taste, your access, your privilege—but it says nothing about your power. Not real power. Not the kind that shapes lives, including your own.
The real business of life is not domination. It is stewardship.

It is asking yourself, every day:
• What am I doing with the influence I have?
• How am I using my gifts, my resources, my voice?
• Am I building or am I sabotaging?
• Am I moving with intention or simply reacting to the world around me?

When we become intentional about how we use our power—our inner power, the kind my grandmother was talking about—we begin to journey through life differently. With more purpose. With more clarity. With more joy.

Because the truth is simple:
What we do with what we have is what shapes our lives.
Not the accumulation.
Not the performance.
Not the illusion.
The journey becomes meaningful when we stop trying to control the tornado and start tending to the ground beneath our feet.

Peace and Blessings