The life of man is marked by a paradox: there is in each one of us the desire to serve another because of the fact that we are creatures, but there is also in us the desire to be independent such that we want to stand on our own feet and be free from all control. Firstly, we have a desire to serve another. We cannot avoid the obvious fact that we are limited and helpless in many respects. We try to do things and we fail. Others have talents that we do not. We have a lot of desires which we recognize we have no power to realize. This leads us to look for someone to follow who is more powerful, more capable, who is able to protect our interests and help us achieve what we desire in a much greater way than we could by ourselves. This is why everyone wants a hero to follow. We live at a time in history when the importance of independence is emphasized in society more than it has ever been. Yet there is no less hero worship today than in the past. At the same time, we want to be independent, to be in a state where we do not serve anyone else. We have a fear of serving because we find it hard to trust anyone ruling over us. We realize that if we give ourselves over to serve another, that person might take advantage of us and make our lives worse instead of better. There is great suspicion today regarding everyone who holds power. There is a belief that power necessarily corrupts people. And so, the more power that they hold, the more corrupt they will be. Plus, we do not like to be told what to do. We feel like the act of obedience causes us to surrender our free will, something that is very precious to us. When we face this paradox that exists within us—that we both want to serve and we do not want to serve—we have a number of possibilities as to how we will face it.
