The Spiderman Contrapositive
by Kyeli on January 9th, 2009 @ 9:09 am in
How To Be Awesome
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
Good ol’ Uncle Ben had it right: power and responsibility are linked. Victims have no power and no responsibility. Superheros have lots of both – and supervillians abuse both. In fact, if you shirk responsibility, you often wind up giving away your power.
It can be as simple as getting your own glass of water instead of asking your partner (or roomie or child), or as complicated as standing in your power as you end a toxic relationship.
Over the weekend, we realized the contrapositive is true. To help explain, I shall channel Pace for a moment.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Converted to an if-then statement:
If you have great power, then you have great responsibility.
Converted to the contrapositive:
If you don’t have great responsibility, then you don’t have great power.
See? I’m a scientitian! I got all logic-y and made no sense to myself there for a moment.
Okay, back to my own words.
We’re not talking about super powers (though I’d love to be invisible or telepathic). We’re talking about internal power, personal power. If you’re a powerful person, then you take responsibility for yourself and your life. You’re aware of how your choices, actions, and words affect yourself and others. You know that you alone are in charge of you and your life.
It’s scary to be powerful – but it’s exhilarating and exciting, too!
If, however, you take no responsibility for yourself, you lose your power. If you never get yourself that glass of water, you eventually tell yourself that you can’t do it. In the case of a simple glass of water, that’s patently not true – but in more complicated cases, it’s very true. If you always dodge responsibility, your power suffers.
And that leads us to the point (finally!). If you teach yourself (or if someone else teaches you) how to take responsibility, you learn how to have power.
If you get a cat, you have the responsibility to feed her and care for her, to give her clean water and a clean litter box and affection. You have the power to do those things – or to not do them. It’s the power of life and death for your new kitty. If you can’t handle that power, it would be better to avoid taking on the responsibility in the first place. Mistakes are normal and okay – she’ll forgive you for waiting til she whines at you to fill her food bowl. But she’s under your control, in your power, and she’s your responsibility.
I realized this over the weekend. Pace and I took a class (lots and lots of epiphanies in that class!), and we were discussing power. I mentioned that Dru struggles with empowerment, and the difficulties of teaching him how to be powerful. One of the teachers said, “Power and responsibility are linked.”
A light went off! If I give him responsibility, he will find power.
I started implementing this epiphany today. Today, he helped me with the laundry. He felt the power of making clean clothes happen. He knows how to recreate that feeling, and knows that if he doesn’t, his clothes won’t get that way on their own.
He even mentioned it already – “It’s nice to have clean clothes again, and it wasn’t all that hard!”
Pace and I told him that he gets an equal share in the power of choosing our new home (we’re moving in February) – and added that an equal vote in which house to live in means an equal share in taking care of that house. More power brings more responsibility – but more responsibility teaches power.
I learned this the hard way. I had given all my power away, and thus spent a long time feeling like a victim. I had no power, so I took no responsibility. Then, I found my power. I started taking on responsibilities. I discovered how to take responsibility for myself, and as a result, have the power to take care of myself in the ways I need (or to ask for it clearly if, for some reason, I actually don’t have the ability to do something).
Yes, being responsible for myself is scary. Being powerful is scary – just listen to all the whining Spiderman does. But in the end, we’re all very powerful beings; it’s time we took that to heart.
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7 Comments!
#2 Posted by 
Ellen Naylor on January 10th, 2009 10:50 am | link
Power is responsibility. This post is timely for many who forget we have choice in this tough economy: we still have choice. Punch around the Internet enough and you find great people to connect with, which is great when you are snowbound in the mountains which happens often where I live in Conifer, CO.
Giving responsibility is empowering. That’s why good parents give their kids tasks around the house, and they learn the power of responsibility for life. Those who “spoil” their kids really do them a disservice since they don’t learn responsibility until they have to, and some don’t ever learn it, and it’s a sad thing to give up power you never knew you had!
#3 Posted by 
Sari O. on January 10th, 2009 11:03 am | link
Hi,
great post, and a great way to turn a familiar concept around so it sticks from a whole new side! :)
I have a feeling that choice plays a big part in that equation, too – I just didn’t figure out the full connection yet. Something along the lines of responsibility brings with it the choice of different actions, including inaction. Power then translates into the choices you can make for yourself and/or for other people. And as soon as you make a choice, you are responsible for the consequences.
The more there are people who are willing to let you make their choices, the more power you have, but you also have greater responsibility for those consequences, not only to yourself but to all those people as well.
Something along those lines. I might have to draw myself a picture to get the connections right. :) Thank you again for the post!
#4 Posted by 
Neko on January 10th, 2009 7:44 pm | link
With responsibility doesn’t come power, though. There’s a lot of abuse done that way, holding someone responsible for results, without giving them the corresponding power.
I like what you said a lot, especially the bits about Dru. It’s just interesting thinking about how it doesn’t go both ways. I like the idea of letting someone choose responsibility to gain power, especially.
#5 Posted by 
James | Megan's Friend on January 10th, 2009 9:48 pm | link
I normally loath posting to a blog to blindly agree with the person who wrote the post, but this is one of the most insightful things I’ve read recently.
I will say, anyone taking this track of helping themselves (or others) must take care that those being given the responsibility are able to achieve the power they are taking the responsibility for. For example, if you teach Dru how to wash his own clothing and then attempt to control where and when he uses the washing machine (outside of establishing boundaries), you’d completely undo all of the empowerment you sought to give him. I’m sayings this more to make conversation than as a criticism of your post, that scenario has play out in front of me more times then I can count.
#6 Posted by 
LeAnne on January 11th, 2009 11:10 am | link
I’m flummoxed. I reached my responsibility saturation point as an IT Manager in June 2007. What to do? Why, start a home business!
A million years later (um…January 2008), I started peritoneal dialysis. The “easy” kind where you have a tube surgically placed in your peritoneal cavity and through the power of osmosis (and some machinery), some of the toxins are sucked out of your body and you can live until a kidney can be transplanted to do the work. I can’t begin to describe the “ugh” factor. But, hey! It could have been worse, right? In August, 2008, my husband donated one of his kidneys. I’m almost 5 months post-op. The docs are very happy.
This is only pertinent because I realize that I was trying to escape responsibility (power?) by quitting the golden handcuff job with bone crushing stress. Ironically, only to (be forced to) embrace responsibility for doing the dialysis (very hands on stuff) and for taking the immunosuppressants and otherwise caring for my body.
What interests me about your post is the twist on the relationship between responsibility and power. I have actively sought to avoid the responsibility of reviving my business (oh, I have lots of “irons in the fire” but you know what I mean–I watched all 8 seasons of Smallville in two weeks).
Is this avoiding my power, as well?
In retrospect, I feel I’ve had lots of responsibility without the balancing, healing effects of power. I’d like to “get my power back” but I don’t want–can’t take–any more responsibility.
You’ve really given me something to chew on. That’s pretty authentic stuff. I appreciate that, as I claw my way back to…where ever it is I’m going.
#7 Posted by 
sonja on January 21st, 2009 11:17 am | link
I really enjoyed this. I’ve been having a hard time articulating this concept to co-workers, friends and family for the entirety of my lifetime or so it would seem.
I watched my ex-spouse leave her cat’s litter box past the point of any kind of redemption over and over. It killed me to witness it so I would clean it myself. She would get angry at me for taking on that responsibility without her permission. What do you think this means in the context of responsibility and power?
#1 Posted by
Hayden Tompkins on January 9th, 2009 2:25 pm | link
I love the idea of breaking an idea down to its contrapositive. This is a really powerful post.
(Of course, you just reminded me of a conversation that I had with my husband about super powers!)