You know what power looks like.
You’ve been building toward it for years. The title with weight behind it. The salary that makes the number feel real. The career that finally has gravity behind it.
You have some of those things. Maybe most of them. You’ve done everything right. Checked every box. Twice, actually, just to be sure.
And yet.
You still say yes to things you don’t want to do. You still stay in situations longer than you should because leaving feels too risky. You still make decisions based on what you can afford to lose rather than what you actually want. You still can’t tell your employer, your family, or that one person in your life who always needs something. No. Not really. Not without it costing you something you can’t afford.
That’s not power. That’s proximity to it. And proximity doesn’t pay out the same way.