The Things We Give Power To

April 22, 2026                                                                        Issue 2

“Belief is a beautiful armor but makes for the heaviest sword.” – John Mayer

Belief. It is something everyone talks about, something everyone searches for, and yet something we often reduce into far too small of a definition. We treat belief as if it only matters in moments of crisis, moments of worship, or moments when we are trying to defend what we think is true. But belief is not limited to those moments. It is much larger than that. Belief is one of the central forces behind how we think, how we feel, how we cope, how we connect, and how we move through the world each day. It is the hidden framework beneath our choices. Maybe that is why people try to bottle it up, simplify it, or conform to the beliefs of others. It is easier to inherit belief than to examine it.

Belief has always been one of the most contested forces in human life. Across the world, what is considered sacred in one place can be dismissed as foolish, dangerous, or offensive in another. Society quietly decides which beliefs are acceptable, which are tolerated, and which are condemned. Religion is perhaps the clearest example of this. For some, it is refuge, meaning, order, and peace. For others, it is illusion, control, or something impossible to take seriously. What makes this more complicated is that society itself is never just one thing. We live inside layers of smaller societies: families, friendships, cultures, communities, and ideologies. Within each one, belonging is often tied to belief. We do not just inherit beliefs; we gather around them. In many ways, we choose our people by what they affirm, what they reject, and what they are willing to call truth.

Mental health may be one of the clearest places where belief becomes personal. Every person carries something, and every person learns to survive it differently. For some, relief is found in music. For others, in a relationship, in a sport, in children, in movement, in art, in risk, in routine, or in the small rituals that make life feel bearable. Everyone has something they reach for. Everyone has something they believe will get them through the day. But there are also darker beliefs that can take hold when pain becomes too heavy. Sometimes a person can begin to believe that escape is the only peace available to them. Sometimes they believe the world would be better without them, or that there is no way through what they are carrying. That belief is tragic, and it leaves devastation behind, but it is still belief in one of its most painful forms. Moments like that do not just break hearts; they reshape the belief systems of everyone left behind. They change what we believe about suffering, about people, about God, about ourselves, and about how fragile life really is.

That is what makes belief so difficult to judge. If someone believes addiction can numb them enough to survive their pain, is that belief any less powerful than the belief that confession, faith, or forgiveness can free someone spiritually? One may destroy while another may heal, but both reveal the same truth: people are always giving power to something. Belief is not only what saves us. Sometimes it is also what sedates us, traps us, or keeps us alive long enough to make it to tomorrow.

Love and relationships are another place where belief quietly governs everything. Nearly everyone chases love in one form or another. Sometimes that pursuit is found in romance, sometimes in friendship, family, children, or community, and sometimes in things that only imitate connection. Every relationship is built on belief: belief in trust, belief in loyalty, belief in being seen, belief in safety, belief in growth. When that belief is returned, relationships can become one of the strongest sanctuaries in life. When it is broken, they can alter our beliefs just as powerfully. The people closest to us do not only affect how we feel about them; they affect how we see the world itself. A strong enough bond can reinforce an old belief, challenge it, or completely reverse it. That does not always make relationships bad. It just shows how much power we give them.

Families may be the first belief systems most of us ever know. We are born into them without choosing them, and whether they are loving, fractured, absent, or complicated, they shape our earliest understanding of truth. Parents, guardians, siblings, and the people who raise us become our first examples of what to trust, what to fear, what to value, and what to reject. For some, family is biological. For others, family is found. Either way, these bonds become the earliest structure of belief. Because those bonds run so deep, many people conform to family beliefs long before they ever decide what they actually think for themselves. The fear of becoming the black sheep, of disappointing the people who formed you, or of losing your place within the group can make independent belief feel costly. But questioning what you were taught is not always rebellion. Sometimes it is the beginning of honesty.

Maybe that is the real weight of belief. It is not only something we argue about in public or defend in private. It is something we build ourselves around. Our beliefs become our coping mechanisms, our loyalties, our identities, our comforts, our addictions, our grief, our relationships, our faith, and our sense of belonging. Some of those beliefs are beautiful. Some are destructive. Some save us. Some ruin us. Most do a little of both depending on who is holding them.

Whatever it is that we individually believe in right now, maybe the real question is not whether we should believe, but whether we are willing to examine what we are giving power to. Our beliefs are sacred to us, even the ones we never speak aloud. There is something in every person they hold so privately, so carefully, that it almost becomes a sanctuary. A personal religion. Something they return to for meaning, relief, or direction. Maybe belief is not just what we say we follow. Maybe belief is whatever we hand our lives over to.

Known By Nothing