Power and Hope

Gerry, Roy, Aaron and I had a terrific time today sharing our stories and perspectives on a wide range of topics. Unfortunately, I placed the recorder next to the speaker phone which caused a lot of static noise, rendering the tape useless ...

One important topic that we spent significant amount of time on is the relationship of power and hope. Power without hope is abusive and hope without power is empty. How do we nurture and fulfill both in real life situations? Not a trivial matter. Those of us in business recognize clearly the brutality of capitalism. Yet the most common remedies are attempts to contain its abusive power with empty hope of maintaining status quo - treating individuals equally without consideration of creativity and responsibilities. That kind of "charity" approach to life inevitably fails the tests of reality and create enormous problems for the society and future generations. Most government sponsored social programs suffer from this ailment. On the opposite end, the greed of Wall Street continues to abuse its monopoly of the market - take home fat bonuses when times are good and ask for bailout when times are bad. There are no easy solutions to these problems. Obama is trying but by no means succeeding. In my mind, the real answer lies in each of us. Unless we discover and practice a life style of both power (the ability to make an impact) and hope (a sense of purpose and sustainable future), the side effects of either abusive power or empty hope are bond to overwhelm even our most noble ideals. We got into some excellent conversations on what such a life style entails for each of us, both professional and personally. This is what our group is about - discovering and nurturing both power and hope in the context of day-to-day living and out of the debris of post-modernism. We have agreed to continue on this path on November 21.