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Word of the Day: The Upper Hand
With great power comes great responsibility.
That’s what Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spiderman’s uncle Ben, said as they sat in his car in front of the art gallery in Vancouver (Sorry, New York).
People with great power will always have the upper hand and will thus be able to control others.
Having the upper hand on someone means having power over them. If you have the upper hand, you can control others and affect what they do.
In life, only a few of us will have great power and the ability to control countries or make the stock market rise and fall.
We will, though, have the upper hand on a few people who are less powerful than ourselves.
It’s our responsibility to ensure we don’t abuse that power.
Nobody likes a boss or parent who abuses their authority to make life miserable for others.
With that said, we also have the power within ourselves to prevent others from affecting how we feel.
Having a positive outlook on life will give us the upper hand no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.
Yeah, I know it sounds corny and perhaps a little foolish, but in reality, one of the only things we can truly control is how we choose to face the world.
They win if we meet the world with a negative attitude or feel that we will never get ahead.
Who are they?
Well, they are whoever thinks they have the upper hand over us.
We can’t control what they do, but we can control our reactions.
A positive can-do attitude will help us overcome any adversity and gain the upper hand on any challenges that come our way.
There are two crucial things to remember.
First, you should never abuse your power when you have the upper hand.
Second, if you learn how to control your reaction to adversity, you will always have the upper hand in any situation.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 70.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.