There was a time when leadership meant responsibility—when power came with a duty to serve, not to be served. But something has shifted. Let’s call that shift what it is: attitude.
We now live in the age of ego.
An age where we pretend truth doesn’t matter.
An age where we have the tools to help us think—yet often we don’t.
I didn’t stop to think much, either.
But lately, I have—and I’m not happy with what I see.
The strongman rises, not because he is needed, but because he is loud.
Because he promises to break things.
To dominate.
To win.
Not through cooperation, but conquest.
Not through integrity, but spectacle.
And we watch in fascination—or dismay—and wonder: how is this happening?
“Winning” has become a zero-sum game.
Your gain is my loss.
My rise must be your fall.
This new rule of power forgets that power is borrowed.
But let’s be clear—power is always borrowed.
From the people.
From the public trust.
From the quiet dignity of shared responsibility—true in every form of government.
And when that truth is ignored, the consequences are often catastrophic.
Brutal.
We pay for ego with our institutions.
We pay for domination with our relationships.
We pay for it all—with trust.
Because domination isolates.
It dehumanizes.
It replaces dialogue with dictates.
It replaces community with control and compassion with indifference.
Think of the propaganda, the disinformation, the lies designed to divide us.
These tools aren’t new. They’re ancient.
And every regime that has embraced them has paid the price in time:
Collapse.
Resistance.
Or both.
Here in America, we see it too.
We see it in the erosion of empathy.
We see it in the cruel policies that punish the most vulnerable.
We see it in the glorification of leaders who mistake arrogance for strength.
But here’s the deeper cost:
We begin to forget who we are.
We forget that leadership is supposed to lift.
That truth is supposed to anchor.
That dignity belongs to all.
Our legacy is not to ourselves—that’s called hubris.
Our legacy is what we leave to the generations that follow.
When we begin to think that power means being above others, not beside them…
When we begin to believe that domination is destiny…
We lose something essential.
Because the destiny of domination is always the same:
Ruin. Pain. Death.
The outcome of ego without empathy never changes.
War.
Suffering.
Collapse.
The alternative is harder—but it’s real.
It’s leadership rooted in humility.
Power tethered to accountability.
Truth shared—not shouted.
This is us.
We are not meant to rule each other.
We are meant to rise—together.
And so we must decide:
Will we serve the age of ego?
Or will we reclaim the power of us?
The cost is high, no matter what we choose.
But only one path truly leads forward.
The other cycles the pain of the past.
This is us.
The Power of Us.
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