What you are is a question only you can answer.
A good friend of my son's is a son to me.
I have a catch-phrase to describe my plot-generation technique -- 'What's the worst possible thing I can do to these people?'
If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?
One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns.
Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later.