Would you find more comfort believing your actions are relatively consequential or inconsequential? There are days I want to be able to change the world because it seems unbearable. And then there are days I want to believe I don't really make that much difference -- much more relaxing, but sometimes depressing. I ususally believe it's somewhere in the middle -- can't make as much difference as I'd like but not irrelevant either. I guess if I could just come up with a plan I could believe would work, then being powerful might be worth it. Of course, then you'd have to have the chutzpah to instigate such a plan, and I could never overcome the sense of arrogance that would seem to entail. So I think I've talked myself into not wanting much influence after all.