Alfred Adler said – ‘In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.’
The baby rules over the adults with his weakness.
And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.
Similarly, as long as one continues to use one’s misfortune to one’s advantage in order to be ‘special’, one will always need that misfortune.
This excerpt from the famous book – The Courage To Be Disliked, got me thinking. There are so many things in today’s world which operate on the principle of weakness. Although they are some of the most powerful institutions on the planet today.
Religion
Christians and the Church claim they are growing weak against Islam and other localized religions and continue to push conversion across the globe.
Islam claims slaughter and racism against them, and continues to grow their population at double the average rate of the rest of the world.
By 2060, Islam will have more people compared to Christianity, and still continue to claim weakness across the globe.
Although I point out Christianity and Islam above, the other religions use the same concept. Hindus and Jews will claim they are weak and wage a war against Islam to “preserve” their own religion. Buddhists are doing the same in Myanmar. And even their population will only continue to rise over the next half a century.
In summary, when it comes to religion, always take the words of the Priest or the Mullah or the Pandit or the Rabbi with a pinch of salt. They are only using weakness to gather more power.
Activists (of all categories)
Journalists, Feminists, Anti-feminists, Gays, Anti-gays, Vegans, Anti-vegans, Racists, Anti-racists, Environmentalists, Industrialists and many more. Every single one of them will claim they are the weaker side and hence justify their actions to gather more power.
For Activists, in fact, it is a battle for their survival. Their whole existence depends on them continue to remain weak. Once they become strong, i.e. once their goals are achieved, there is no need for activists for the initial cause. Or at least not as many activists as they had earlier. And hence, although activists start out with a good intention, once their initial goals are achieved, you will find every single activist group continue to find additional issues and set additional goals.
If you wish to learn why human beings would try to remain negative even after achieving their goals, and continue to find more problems instead of reaching a state of contentment, you need to see a short video on “The Blue Dot Effect“.
Family or Work
The examples above were primarily about behavior linked to large groups of people. Or a person’s behavior linked to a goal which is not set by himself, but is part of a larger story. Moving to close quarters, let’s try to understand the dynamics a little differently.
You are sitting at a table, eating food. Your sister snatches the dessert cookie and runs away. *Interestingly, age is not a factor here. 😉
What do you think happens next? If Mom or Dad are around, will your sister try to show strength or weakness? Even if she is the one who stole the cookie? And what if you are both alone at home? How would she respond then?
Let me take a wild guess about your answers – Your sister will act weak when in front of your parents. But, will levitate towards showing strength when alone.
What will blow your mind is, even after she showed strength when you were alone, the moment your parents are back, she will immediately fallback to weakness!
The same behavior will happen at work – with your colleagues and your boss. At lower levels, when your visibility is not so high, you might take your chances with strength much more often. The higher up you are in a group hierarchy, i.e. the more visible you are, the quieter and humbler (read weaker) you will behave.
Do you understand now?
Strength is useful in a situation only when you have no other mechanism to use weakness to your benefit.
Everywhere else, Weakness is Powerful.
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