Trinidad & Tobago is a paradox. A land that gave the world the steelpan—the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century—and birthed icons like Carlisle Chang, who designed our flag and coat of arms, and Sybil Atteck, our first great woman painter. In science, Courtenay Bartholomew diagnosed the first AIDS case in the Anglophone Caribbean and became UWI’s first Professor of Medicine. These are not just achievements—they are living proof that when we act on our own ideas, we forge legacies.

Yet, for all this creativity, our collective energy still often gets tied up in commentary instead of craftsmanship.

Epictetus captured this when he said:

Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you.

Captain James Stockdale lived this truth. Shot down and imprisoned during the Vietnam War, he realized quickly that survival wasn’t about clinging to hope for release — the “optimists” who did that, he said, died of broken hearts. Instead, he focused only on what he controlled: his mind, his choices, his ability to endure.

Epictetus also reminds us:

Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice, which oversees all other things, and is free from any other master.

Viktor Frankl discovered the same truth in Auschwitz. Stripped of everything — family, work, freedom — he still held one thing that could never be taken: the ability to assign meaning to his suffering. In choosing meaning, he preserved his humanity.

These stories tell us that our deepest strength has nothing to do with circumstance, but with how we use what is already ours.

And yet, as Jon Acuff warns:

Unused ambition turns into unbridled jealousy aimed at the people who are brave enough to use theirs.

That’s the trap we keep falling into here. We are a twin-island of brilliant minds, but instead of focusing our ambition, we too often turn it sideways — into gossip, into critique, into cutting down the ones who dare to act. Ambition, left unused, doesn’t sit quietly. It rots.

Old Wounds, Imported Scripts

In his essay “Of High Color, High Power, and Imported Doctrines” (shared on Facebook), Enrique Ignacio points to the quiet hierarchies of shade that still shape opportunity in T&T. Lighter skin still carries subtle privilege. Darker tones still face stereotypes. We don’t like to talk about it — we prefer euphemisms like “high color privilege” — but silence is the perfect fertilizer for inequality.

At the same time, there’s another habit at play: an eagerness to import political doctrines. Ignacio notes how “tough-on-crime” rhetoric — straight from U.S. playbooks — is seeping into our policies. Admirable toughness to some, but to others it looks like we’ve traded the Caribbean tradition of “zone of peace” diplomacy for Washington’s embrace.

So here we are: still nursing colonial wounds, while trying on someone else’s script for power. And in the process, the hidden power we do have — our ingenuity, creativity, and cultural resilience — remains underused.

The Paradox We Must Confront

• We are independent, but still let foreign models dictate our tone.
• We are diverse, but still allow color hierarchies to shape opportunity.
• We are talented, but ambition often calcifies into jealousy instead of action.

Stockdale and Frankl remind us that even in chains, freedom is possible when you act on what is yours alone. Imagine what’s possible for a free people who already hold that gift.

Acuff’s challenge cuts even closer: unused ambition will not save us. It will corrode us from the inside out — until all we have left is commentary instead of creation.

The question is simple but demanding: Will we keep borrowing scripts? Or will we claim the power that already belongs to us?

Strategic Reflection Prompt
Where in your life or business are you letting ambition stagnate — turning into critique, envy, or reliance on borrowed models — instead of focusing it into meaningful action?

If you’re ready to move from commentary to creation — to step into your own script instead of borrowing someone else’s — let’s begin with a Clarity Conversation™. Sometimes the smallest act of focus is all it takes to turn hidden power into visible progress.