Power or Reverence

There’s a thing about holding power, and most folks don’t talk about it plain. Not because they don’t feel it.
But because they’ve been taught to look for it in the wrong places.

They think power lives in politics, in boardrooms, in pulpits, in wealth, in titles stitched on a name badge or printed on a door. But that’s just the loud kind. The truth is, power is everywhere.

It’s in the way your voice lands on another person’s body.
It’s in the pause before you answer someone who’s afraid.
It’s in the look you give when someone tells you the truth.
It’s in the tone you take when you’re tired, overwhelmed, or in a hurry.

It’s in the nurse walking into a room.
The parent answering a child.
The pastor listening to a confession.
The friend deciding whether to hold or handle what was just shared.

Power is not rare.
It is constant.

And most of it never wears a crown.

It lives in the everyday moments where one human being has weight in another human being’s life.

That’s where the real work is.
That’s where the real danger is, too.

Because power doesn’t always announce itself. It doesn’t always come with training or warning. Sometimes, it just shows up quietly and says: “You matter here.” And what you do next… that’s the whole story.

Power doesn’t start as corruption.
It starts as distance.

Distance from the ones you affect.
Distance from consequence.
Distance from remembering what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

And once that distance grows, people stop being people.

You stop hearing their breath.
You stop feeling their nervous system.
You stop noticing the way your words land in their chest.

You forget that every decision you make lands in somebody’s body.

So let me say this as plain as I know how:

If your presence, position, or voice carries weight in another person’s life, you are standing on sacred ground whether you believe in anything sacred or not.

And, the test is not how well you command. The test is how well you remember.

Remember what it felt like to be the one waiting.
Remember what it felt like to be misunderstood.
Remember what it felt like to need mercy and not get it.
Remember what it felt like to be small in a room where someone else had the say.

If you forget that, it won’t be long before you start justifying things your younger self would’ve wept over.

That’s how it happens.
Not all at once.
But in quiet trades:
Convenience for conscience.
Efficiency for empathy.
Control for connection.

You’ll tell yourself:
“They’ll be fine.”
“This is just how it works.”
“I don’t have time for all that.”

And yes, hard calls do have to be made. But there is a difference between making a hard call
and letting your heart go hard while you make it. One keeps you human.
The other turns you into something else.

Listen close:
You are not measured by how many people obey you.
You are measured by how many people remain whole in your presence.

Do they leave your leadership with their dignity intact?
Do they feel seen, even when the answer is no?
Do they feel safer… or smaller?

Because power that shrinks people is easy. Any fool with a title can do that.
But power that steadies people…
power that tells the truth without stripping someone bare…
power that protects without humiliating… That kind takes a backbone and a soul.

And it will cost you.

It will cost you speed.
It will cost you popularity.
It will cost you the illusion of control.
It may even cost you your position.

But it will give you something far more rare: the ability to remain human while holding influence.

So come back down sometimes.
Sit where the people sit.
Listen without interrupting.
Let someone tell you the truth without punishing them for it.

And keep something in your life that humbles you. A garden that does not care about your title. A child who asks you questions you can’t control.
An elder who still calls you by your given name. A body that reminds you it can break. A grief you can not outrun.

Those things will keep your soul from floating too far from your own humanity. Because once that happens, power does not just leave bruises. It leaves ghosts.

In the end, most people will not remember your strategy, your title, or the size of your reach. They will remember how their body felt in the wake of your authority. Whether they felt braced for harm or safe enough to exhale. Whether your presence made them smaller or allowed them to remain whole.

That is the part no resume can hold.

So whatever influence has been placed in your hands, hold it carefully. Because long after the role is gone, what will remain is not what you controlled. It will be what you touched, what you altered, and whether the people beneath your shadow had to heal from you after you were gone.

And maybe the question was never whether you had power at all.
Maybe the real question is this:
Did you carry it like something that belonged to you?
Or did you carry it like something that was never yours to harm?

Power… or reverence.

That choice is being made every single day.