The Greatest Power

The Greatest Power

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.” -William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

As an engineer and scientist, I have studied power. Gravitational, nuclear, electrical, chemical, thermal and magnetic forces are just a few of the many cosmic elements of power in the material realm. Science defines power as force acting upon objects to do work. And so it is in mankind’s societies and culture. Worldly power is the ability to influence people to do things.

In science, work is force applied over a distance. Another way of looking at that is to say that work is power applied to make changes in the state of physical objects. Thermal power applied to a pot of water makes it boil. Electrical power applied to a motor makes it turn. The power of an idea applied to people’s lives can change their actions and the very nature of their existence.

It has been my experience that the greatest power in the universe is the power to change a single life. Obviously, this power can be both wisely used or foolishly abused. A harsh cruel word can cripple a soul. A kind act or even a simple smile can soothe a wounded spirit. If we use the power of our choices and actions wisely we can alter the course of a life for the better, and like a droplet of water upon a still pool the effects can radiate outwards into the world touching countless other people and their existences.

Truly, the power to change a single life has an unimaginable impact on the universe. We can never know the extent of the effect across time and space. No one is an island. One life touches so many others throughout bot time and space. With our limited viewpoint all we can personally see is the one existence that we may have changed. Yet our simplest actions could yield effects across many lives and generations.

The question arises: Knowing this now, how does one choose to act upon it? You personally have the greatest unimaginable power to change a single life: your own! Many thoughts will enter your mind today. Will you entertain the positive, constructive and loving ones, or will you dwell upon the dark, fearful and destructive ones? Will you treat yourself with kindness, gentleness and respect, or will you allow yourself to act carelessly inflicting harm to your body, mind or spirit? Will your actions today foster feelings of belonging, joy and peace or will they lead to the poisonous emotions of envy, greed, bitterness and anger.

Many seem to crave power in the hopes to use it to work a change of state in their outer lives. Oddly, these same folks usually fail to use their existing power where it will have the greatest impact working change upon the state of their inner existence. If you truly want the power to shine light upon this marvelous yet weary world in which we live then do it wisely starting with a single life: your own. Begin your good deeds within, that they may then shine forth into all the world through every life that you encounter.

©2017 S.D.Wilson

What if…

What if… 

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” –Thomas A. Edison

These are some very haunting words. The line between succeeding and failing is truly razor thin. I sometimes get goose bumps when I reflectively consider the possible impact upon our world had some of our greatest pioneers and people given up when they encountered opposition, adversity or a pressure to conform. Imagine a world under the following conditions:

What if… Arthur and Kate Keller had followed common practice in the late 1800’s and placed their deaf and blind daughter in institutional care?

What if… in 1890 Marie Curie had accepted the Polish prohibition of women from university education, never joining the clandestine Flying University?

What if… Steve Job had cut his losses in 1986 after having been kicked out of Apple and NeXT Inc. was on the ropes, never looking at Pixar?

What if… Isaac Newton had listened to his mother and remained a farmer?

What if… J.K. Rowling had given up writing while struggling on welfare?

What if… Walt Disney had believed the editor in 1919 who fired him because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

I could list countless examples like these. Each of these people had moments where they could have stopped following their dreams or given up on themselves. No one would have condemned them. Everyone would have understood. History would have simply rolled on without them. It chills me further to realize that there likely are some minds and hearts like these that have already quit and deprived us of their amazing innovations and ideas. We likely will never know what we have lost.

What does Edison’s warning say about us and our own efforts when we consider quitting? How close are we to finding success? Is that last failure our breaking point or the one just before our breakthrough? Is there a mother lode of triumph buried inside us just beneath that last stinging defeat? If we give up then we will never truly know. Our own greatness may not shine brightly before the world like that of the people I listed above. Yet it would remain an equally great tragedy for any of us to live our lives with our noblest potential undiscovered, undeveloped and unachieved.

In this life when it comes to our own success, it is always too early to quit and never too late to get up and keep going.


©2017 S.D.Wilson