Kanye West’s attitude teaches lesson of self-empowerment
April 12, 2015
“Every move a person makes is not going to be correct. Everything a person says is not going to be well timed, but sometimes those mistimed moves can inspire the next generation.”
Who said it? Steve Jobs? No. Walt Disney? No. Henry Ford? No. It’s Kanye West in an interview he gave with The Breakfast Club, and ironically West doesn’t compare himself to any of those people at any point during the interview.
Years of “turning up” and “wilding out” may have finally knocked West into his senses. In fact, he can probably knock us back into our senses as well. No, most of us have not and will not make fools of ourselves on national television multiple times, but West can teach us about something much more personal. Self-empowerment.
Self-empowerment is necessary because it reminds us that we are all great, but it is a fragile term because it is easily confused with entitlement. People think that because we are great as individuals, we deserve more. That’s where Kanye may have overstepped his boundaries.
West’s self-empowerment turned into an ego boost. He started to believe that his word mattered most, which is why he tried to take a Grammy for himself, insulted Beck, said that George Bush doesn’t care about black people at a telethon, and so on. But in his recent interview with The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1, West seemed to change his perspective on himself.
“I don’t want to give myself any form of a title anymore,” West said. “I’m not calling myself a genius, I’m not calling myself a visionary of any type. The only thing I could say is that I’m a servant. I want to serve, and getting a group of amazing designers together that could create something to serve the public, that’s my job.”
As West lowered himself from a God-like pedestal, he remained confident that he could help the world in some way. That is self-empowerment. That is necessary. We must all think of ourselves as servants, as helpers. But that doesn’t mean we are below anyone.
We are just as great as the next person, and each of us has something amazing to offer to the world. Despite his recent antics, Kanye West’s new attitude can remind us of that. Nevertheless, when we realize our greatness, we cannot see it as any better than anyone else’s. Otherwise, we might just end up making fools of ourselves on national television.
