By Aina Samuel Babatunde
A friend once said something that struck me deeply:
“Power makes people think everyone is dispensable.”
Simple, yet profound.
Power is like a cloak — a bubble. If you’re not careful, it distorts your vision. You stop seeing people for who they truly are, and instead, they become tools for your own satisfaction. Relationships morph into transactions, losing the essence of connection. True nature disappears, a pernicious distortion takes its place.
Close friends begin to view you as a demigod, their proximity to you depending more and more on how honest they have to be. You do little and praise singers say you have done the most. You do the most and they say you have ascended above the heights reserved for the divine; akin to angels.
Almost god-like. Worshipped.
So, how do relationships still matter? What value is relationship, steeped in history, forged in hardship and years of toil and suffering when you can easily replace it with adoration that can be bought? Truth becomes irrelevant. Lies are dressed in gold. Power makes everything you utter wisdom. Before long, honesty packs its load and leaves your home, unwanted.
Power is deceitful. It ushers you in, keeps you fed, before spitting you out without notice. Power is fugacious. Fleeting. In the blink of an eye, you become a forgotten relic, spoken of only in hushed, cryptic whispers.
Power must not change who you are. Surround yourself with unapologetic people to whom truth is a beacon; unshaken. Be grounded in values, unperturbed by accolades. Praise is a drug, do not let it envelope you, dulling your senses. Keep your circle prelapsarian, for power is a battle between who you are and what people make you out to be.
Make sure you win.
Let people love you for who you are, not what you have achieved. Remain teachable. Power elevates, it doesn’t edify. Be humble. Wake up everyday and tell yourself it will not last forever. When all else fades away, character will keep your name on the lips of history.
Let power amplify your integrity, not distort it.
Stay rooted in authenticity.
Do not become a victim of power. It has consumed bigger men than you.
Selah.