Power versus Love

“Is Love more Powerful than Power itself?”

Sometime ago I was discussing power politics with an elderly person. He was telling me the story of a famous politician and how he consolidated power in the city and state.

I asked, “It seems that if you have power you have everything.”

He immediately replied and said, “No. Don’t buy into that idea ever. In life you only need love and that is enough. Power stems from insecurity, love stems from willpower to give.”

Back then I was reading this book called 48 laws of power. Robert Green, the author, has recommended some severely sinister laws in the book. It bothered me but I kept reading for the stories.

I am yet to complete that book, but now I’ve gotten distracted with some other books and also election drama.

But when my Uncle said “Love is enough.” I wondered if he was right. I decide I’ll perform a strong thought experiment. I’ll start looking at “love” vs “power” battle.

And I didn’t have to look that far or for that long. My thought experiment and observations are still going on.

When it comes to power, Bal Thackeray was definitely “all that” and some more. Yet he was the most insecure politician there was. The moment he knew he would have to face prison during Emergency he surrendered to Indira Gandhi.

Similarly politicians who hunger behind power face similar fate. They always feel it isn’t “enough.”

Jayalalithaa also gave in to many at the Centre because of her hunger for power. So did Karunanidhi.

While these people may have been “good” politicians, their hunger for power was their ultimate downfall.

Power runs out. Love doesn’t.

Love is the act where you GIVE. I cannot emphasize more how magical it is to love.

When you do your job by putting in ‘love' you do exceptionally better than your coworkers simply because you love it.

Your growth depends on whether you love your job instead of how much power you consolidate with it.

When you seek power for something you start to identify yourself with it. You begin building your identity around it. The book had wonderful stories of feats of courage. But not once did it address the issue of how sometimes leaders face tremendous downfall when they are not able to separate their 'job' from their ‘personality’.

When you do something with love, you decide to give yourself “power” to do it and not surrender to it for validation.

Love enables you to act and power wants you to 'seek’.

I will find a way to explain this better in some more posts ahead. But for now I’ll stick to this blog post as the primer to my series on the thought experiment.

Have a great week ahead!