Powerlessness

There is no feeling in the world which is worse than powerlessness.

You know of what I speak - that sense of becoming indignant, or angry, or simply frightened because of a task or a person, of seeing the injustice or sheer foolishness of a course of action - and to know that you have no power to change it. Every attempt you make was thwarted, every suggestion ignored. You, you are told, are to execute those decisions. Your opinion has been noted - and ignored.

You go back to your desk, or your home, or your thinking closet, and collapse. You're simply drained of energy, of the will to do anything more. The purposelessness of the activities you have been charged with - perhaps doing for years now - is revealed in all of its ugliness and futility.

You pick at things a bit, like a child at the plate of food they're not interested in but know they have to consume, trying to make something out of the rest of your day. You try a slew of arguments in your mind, visualizing the scenario differently, "What I should has said was....This is what should have happened..."

But shoulds are not dids.

Finally, after attempting to prop your inner self up, you try to make the best of a bad situation by putting on a happy face or you collapse into the work of minor items that matter not at all, filling the time with something and hopefully dulling the memory of the incident.

But it is there: every day you approach the situation, every day you see that person or hear their voice, your mind thinks the same thing: for all that I do, what difference will it make?