On strength

Cultivate enough strength to protect a refusal. This may mean learning a skill, setting something aside, finding allies, or building a means of leaving. A choice becomes more real when a person can survive the displeasure of someone who would rather choose for them.

Do not demand that the vulnerable become formidable before they deserve protection. Put some strength within their reach: a witness who will attend, a place to go, a procedure that answers. The usefulness of your own security includes what it allows you to offer someone without it.

Prepare your capabilities more carefully than you display them. A continual demonstration of power occupies everyone’s attention with the question of what you may do next. Make your limits and intentions understandable. Let preparedness give you the patience to hear an answer you dislike.

When you hold power, give people a way to decline your invitation. Then observe how you treat the first person who uses it.

Bind your strength to purposes that others can examine. Name who may act, under what conditions, and who may call the action to account. Good intentions offer little shelter when an injury has already occurred and the person responsible is also the sole judge.

In immediate danger, protect life and make escape possible. Take no pleasure in the force that may be required. Once the danger has passed, the authority granted by that moment must be examined again. Urgency is a poor foundation for a permanent right to command.

An ally should enlarge your freedom to act wisely. Be wary of loyalty that requires you to inherit every quarrel or excuse every injury. Promise what you can honour. Keep the judgment necessary to tell a friend when their own conduct endangers what you have joined to protect.

Strength is also the ability to remain useful after a setback. Keep knowledge in more than one mind, care in more than one pair of hands, and a route home when the usual road is closed. People with alternatives have less reason to make every loss a final battle.