‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens is the greatest ghost story ever written. When the ghost of Jacob Marley haunts Scrooge, his old business partner, he warns the miserable old miser that there’s still time to change his life. Scrooge is only interested in making money and can’t understand what Marley is going on about. “You were always a good man of business, Jacob”, says Scrooge, and this makes Jacob’s ghost scream: “Business! Mankind was my business!”

When Jacob leaves through the window, Scrooge sees many ghosts on the street below, all sobbing and wailing around a poor, starving woman with her baby. The story explains that the reason the ghosts were all crying was that, as they were dead, they could no longer help the woman and her baby, they could only see but do nothing.

The important word in that story is ‘power’. The greatest power you possess is to show friendship and kindness. And what amazed Scrooge at the end of the story was how easy it all was. He found that the simplest acts of friendship and kindness energised HIM even more than the people he was kind to. You can easily discover your own power in this way. You’ll also be amazed at the energy you create around you, simply by being kind and helping other people.