When faced with a situation when you need to act, sometimes you freeze. That feeling is called impuissance, when you’re unable to make a move because you feel like you have no power.
Thinking about world hunger, nuclear war, climate change, and vocabulary may inspire feelings of despair, like there’s nothing to be done and you might as well give up. Bless the French, because they came up with a single word that means exactly that: impuissance. It literally means “not powerful,” and feeling powerless is the key ingredient in impuissance. It’s tricky to pronounce, but imagine you’re in France and try it this way: im-PWIS-since. You’ll feel more powerful in no time.