More and more people look down on others, as if their age, knowledge, experience, money, or status gave them the right to determine whose words carry weight, whose struggle deserves respect, and who is important enough to be heard.
It is particularly disheartening when this is done by those who have been through a great deal, read extensively, and spoken for years about wisdom, breadth of vision, and understanding. They, of all people, should know how fragile a person is, how easily one can fall, and how much someone’s silence can hide a struggle that no one knows anything about.
For many, knowledge has not blossomed into humanity; it has become arrogance. Experience has not become understanding; it has become a license to judge. Position has not become responsibility; it has become an opportunity to finally show how long they’ve been waiting to look down on someone.
They often speak of strength yet cannot tolerate a different opinion. They speak of greatness, yet they must belittle others in order to feel it themselves. They speak of authority, while around them they create fear, silence, and people who carefully choose every word so as not to offend the ego of the one who decides their fate.
Such behavior does not become acceptable simply because it comes from a position of power.
Power isn’t about silencing someone with your knowledge. It isn’t about showing them how much less they know, how much less they have, or how much less they’re capable of. It isn’t about people around you shrinking back, lowering their gaze, and beginning to doubt their own worth.
A position of authority carries the responsibility to let others speak and act without being humiliated. It is when you have the authority to humiliate but choose to preserve someone’s dignity. When you know more, but you don’t use your knowledge as a weapon. When you’ve walked a difficult path, but you don’t mock those who are just trying to find theirs.
Knowledge, experience, and position are worth more when they help others move forward.
If we use them to humiliate people, no amount of authority can repair that relationship.
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