 In engineering, power is recognized as an ability to make things happen. Power involves an applied force that accomplishes a result. If an effort fails to accomplish a result, it has no power. Clicks will always be there—people who seem to have special access to others in a group. That is just human. The human cost of always being outsiders can be high, and I have much experience with people who leave the town where they grew up and never return because they always felt as outsiders. Popularity produces nothing but opportunities. Having those opportunities can have benefit both in terms of forming friendships and opening the way to partnerships. It can be leveraged to some extent. In terms used before, when the wagons are circled, the in-group is protected. There is a shared purpose in protection from the outsiders. It is a pool of potential friends. It is a pool of potential partners. The in-group seems to hold the rest of the rabble outside. That is a social illusion, as there are many more outsiders than insiders. The pool of potential friends and partners outside the clique is far greater. They are just not the popular people. Those who would apply performance thinking will have something to accomplish, not something to do. Being popular is not an accomplishment. It is the opinion of other people. Being popular always has human value, but it is not accomplished by what you do. What your efforts may do is increase the chance of gaining the desired opinion of others. Clicks are not just for the young. There are adult versions of clicks, as in management and leadership. These are people who are accepted as leaders largely because they behave as leaders. There are in-group people, and they are set apart from everyone else. Managers and leaders dress the part. They use the right language. They hold the right opinions for the value of other managers and leaders, and a different value for those outsiders who are just there to do things for their leaders. What is of great importance to your performance potential is that you not let the urge to popularity interfere with your growing into and effective adult. Popularity can and does have continuing value. It also has the continuing challenge of requiring a certain amount of childishness, of always doing the right things or keeping the right appearances. It is not that these special insiders are unable to do things. It is that if they dare to focus on performance, they are very likely to face rejection by others and find themselves on the outside again. Retaining their insider persona requires focus on actions and appearances instead of performances. Though these leaders appear to wield significant power, they are also given little opportunity to do anything with it other than retain their leadership status. Their continuing membership constrains them from harvesting personally valued results. Do not knock the potency of modern leadership. It pays well. Leaders get to choose who gets employed and who does not, what skills get paid, and what are wasted. Leadership generally assumes that leadership is honored and is well paid indeed. That is a privilege of being in an in-group that has charge of other people's money. There can be great personal value in continuing to be in some in-group that is honored by others. What is important for you as a teenager is recognition that there is a cost and there is a benefit, and that this may be a reasonable option for your expenditure of your time and effort. There are costs you must accept, things you must do and to learn to do. There are appearances that you must develop and the uncertainty is that you will not be able to attain the status you seek in the opinion of others. There are various levels of success even for those who are insiders. These are all just costs and results. The decision to accept the costs, even with the uncertainties involved, may well be reasonable due to the adult potentials that you are likely to gain. Recognize that the costs are immediate and continuing. The benefits are in the future. Both the costs and benefits have some level of uncertainty, and your efforts may have to be redirected in the future, gaining different in-results from what you justified your initial decision to commit yourself. Even if it does not work, what you gain will have value because you have learned. As long as you are a teenager who is changing as he or she matures, there is going to be a tolerance for your making changes. It is most common to experiment while you are still a teenager to try things out and see where there is sufficient payback for what you do. You are the one in charge of your commitment of time and energy, and your very purpose is to learn.