Authentic Powers vs. External Powers



















The view from my bedroom window in St. Vincent d'Autejac, France... This is what I see every morning when I wake up...

Authentic Power:
When you possess authentic power, your life is filled with meaning and purpose. You have no doubts. You have no fears. You are happy to be alive. You have a reason to be alive. Everything you do is joyful, exciting and you look forward to each day and each night. You are not worried about doing wrong, making a mistake, or failing. You do not compare yourself with others and what you do with what others do. You can experience authentic power caring for a child, or as simple as cooking a meal. You can experience it in a big project like building a house, or a little project like me, writing. It does not come from what you are doing, but how you are doing it. You can experience authentic power at work, at school, helping a child picking wild flowers, the listing is endless.

External Power:
Authentic power is not only different from external power, it is the reverse. External power is the ability to manipulate and control. It is trying to impress people, always do the right thing, or succeed. It is trying to be better, smarter, stronger, or more beautiful. Yet, it is hard to be more beautiful, wealthy, loving, intelligent, kind, or efficient than other people. Eventually, someone will be more beautiful, wealthy, loving, intelligent, kind, or efficient than you, if not more. External power comes and goes like the value of your stock portfolio.

Pursuing both authentic and external powers is a full-time job, but authentic power does not depend on what happens outside of you, it depends on what happens inside.

Do you like what happens inside of you?

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