Big and Powerful

"To be big!  To be powerful!  This is and always has been the longing of those who are little or feel they are little."

-- Alfred Adler

Power always has been seen as a compensating factor, aggrandizing those who wield it.  In our pop psych world, we often think that smallish people need power to compensate for a lack of size.  Napoleon is the first to come to mind.  Do we also know about diminutive bosses who are abusive?  

I think we tend to overlook Adler's second half of this...those who "feel" they are little.  This could include most of us at some point in our lives.  I know when I ran a car rental agency in Las Vegas, many years ago, that I got great joy one day telling a slacking employee who called in sick once too often to get better but don't ever come back.

Now, that can be seen as good management, but also as an abuse of power, depending on your perspective.  Power is not only with bosses and managers.  When I was a public transit bus-driver (again, many years ago), I left many late-arriving passengers in the dust because they came too late to get on my bus, and my excuse was that next time maybe they will show up on time.  Yes, I was a time Nazi, and it felt so-o-oo good!!  

Ok, so I am small inside.  Aren't we all, to some extent?  Don't we all want to "stick it to the Man" somehow, someday, in any way that lets us, to compensate for our own lack of power, our own "littleness"?  Sure, I think so.