There
are many who need to cling to their high pinnacle of power, because they cannot
descend from it save by falling headlong.
Yet they assure us that their greatest burden
is being obliged to be burdensome to others, and that they are nailed to their
lofty post rather than raised to it.
Let
them then, by dispensing justice, clemency, and kindness with an open and
liberal hand, provide themselves with assistance to break their fall, and
looking forward to this maintain their position more hopefully.
Give me
more than I need to be happy, and I will be prone to growing dependent on my supposed
acquisitions, thinking they are mine when they are not mine at all, and trading
a self-reliance for a reliance on luxuries, badges of honor, and playthings.
I have
known it within myself on a smaller scale, and I have observed it in others on a
larger scale. The necessary is confused with the extraneous. I once thought I
could never survive without a steady supply of whiskey and cigarettes, but I am
now doing just fine. I had a student who told me her life would be over if she
didn’t get into one of her top three picks for law school. She attended her last
pick, and is no worse off as a result.
It is no
different in kind with the bigwigs, though the risks are far greater in degree.
You can sense their dread when the possibility arises that they won’t win the
next election, or they fail to secure a lucrative contract, or some dirt about
them has found its way into the papers. They have built up their high thrones, and
now they are afraid they will fall all the way back down. Yes, it will hurt.
If they
had worked with Nature, and not allied themselves with Fortune, they would have
no fear of falling to begin with. They are right to be worried, but not for the
reasons they tell us. They are not victims, and wealth or influence have done
nothing at all to them; they have taken these conditions and sold themselves to
them.
No man is
good or bad because he is rich, just as no man is good or bad because he is
poor. What he loves, what he wants, what he thinks he needs, and what he acts
for will be the critical factors. If he is put into a position of authority,
now is the moment to seek the guidance of his conscience all the more.
Can he
employ his power to live with virtue himself, and to assist others in living
with virtue? Will he resist the temptation to throw his weight around, and
instead carry the weight of those in need? Is he perhaps willing to give
everything for the sake of others, rather than asking others to give everything
for his sake?
Compassion
and mercy are always required for a good life, but they become all the more important
when the stakes are higher. Our lives will now touch the lives of others more
deeply than we can imagine.
Keep your
neighbor from falling, and you will also manage to keep yourself from falling. We
are made for one another.
Written in 10/2011
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