Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Snow White on Hold...Abusing Power

Snow White on Hold...Abusing Power

Regarding yesterday’s question, “Define Snow Whites problem, I got a number of responses that skirted around the issue. Some were assumptions, others facts, and from my wife, a course of action. Nobody defined the problem….I’m not trying to be obtuse or strut some perverse kind of intellectual superiority. I would be surprised if any of the readers has a bioprocessor as small as mind. I was trained to define problems and in the profession of arms, failure to properly do so can have devastating consequences. Yesterday’s responses are typical of what one receives from an intelligent group of readers and does not question anyone’s intelligence. Still it points out that if everyone defines a problem differently then the result will be that many things get solved but probably not the problem that needs to. Let me ask you all to take another look…the answer is obvious once you see it…having me tell you at this point makes it too easy, however I will give you a clue. I will provide the first half of the statement and you can provide the last four words. “Snow White’s problem is that she needs to…..” One of my readers has an incredible poem that highlights many of the aspects of problem solving that I will be using, with her permission, in the next few blogs. For now let me discuss another issue near and dear to my heart.


I hate it when people abuse their power. Of all the low down things a person can do that is the one that gets to me most.

We all have power and I separate this into “Personal Power” and “Corporate Power.“

Personal power derives from your self. It can be knowledge, wisdom, physical, emotional, personality, charisma…it is your power to personally influence others.

Corporate Power is the power entrusted to us to someone (a leader) to do things of a collective and social importance. For example parents have power to do their parenting tasks, Business owners have power to operate an entrepreneurial venture, military leaders power to accomplish the mission.

Its like having two accounts at the bank…one is your personal account and the other is the corporate account. We need to keep the two separate. For many this is an entirely alien concept. In theory they might see the difference but they readily allow the funds (power) to commingle and in a practical sense don’t really know where one leaves off and the other begins.

The think that the deferential treatment they get as a corporate role leader is not due to their status in the group but rather is attributable to their personal qualities.

A parent who abuses their family and a boss that harasses his employees, are examples and when I experience it or see it in the newspapers or on TV, it grates me to the core and I have to go out and work on my trucks. I can’t even write for a time…it has that kind of an effect.

I am grateful most to my parents because they didn’t “Screw me Up.” They let me develop and while I had some good experiences and some bad I was relatively free to grow into myself. My wife on the other hand was raised under a mushroom, closely controlled, by a dominating and often mean spirited mother. The ties were strong and the web so pervasive that she still has not been able to get free of it. Linda is a brilliant woman and as much as her upbringing riles against my sensitivities I’m grateful her parents had her and passed her on to me. If I had had a modicum of her abilities I would have been many times more successful than I happened to be….not that I’m complaining…I got dealt some good cards but they were not the same as hers and hers have more potential for commercial success in today’s world.

Anyway seeing parents and supervisors abuse their power touches a raw nerve.

Many who are abused by it use it to explain why they’re lives are such a mess. They deceive themselves into thinking that were it not for this bad experience or that their lives might have turned out differently and for the better. In extreme cases people take their lives, but more commonly they live with the emotional scars often attributing to them their own lack of social progress in life. To those who have had been molested or abused I share your outrage, but we need to get along with our lives. Don’t make it an obsession, or worse use it as an excuse for not realizing your dreams.

When I was growing up in Korea my mother had a maid. One day she sent her to the sewing shop with some brocade silk material. On the way she took a shortcut across the paddy and was assaulted and raped. The girl was naturally traumatized by the experience but her mother was also concerned by the material that had been ruined. It was a poor family and there was no way they could afford replacing that expensive bolt of cloth. My mother saw to the girls medical needs and forgave the loss of the material but I still remember that young girl’s mother at our house with the bolt of stained silk cloth as evidence, that this was not some kind of a scam.

There is another aspect to this that is even more chilling….it can go on for a long time and nobody does anything about it. My best friend in High School had an abusive father. He beat John unmercifully and somehow my friend seemed to cope with it. We often focus on the outrage of the child but how about the parent who knew it was going on and didn’t do anything to stop it? This is dark stuff and a whole lot more common than people think.

The point is that we need to push beyond those demons that directly or indirectly affected our lives. These are not pleasant memories but they need to be put behind and if it takes some professional help, don’t be afraid to seek it.