Amazing

This is a post I’ve been meaning to get out there for a while.

Recently, or now what is the equivalent of decades ago as far as blogs go, Amanda Talar wrote a post about her overuse of the word “Amazing.” When reading this post, I questioned my own practices. I do use a lot of adjectives very often.

Awesome. Incredible. Unbelievable. Fantastic. Outstanding.

But I reserve “amazing” for things that truly stand out.

Kanye West performed a Storytellers session for VH1. It is, to date, one of my favorite videotaped live performances. As you know, he has a song with Young Jeezy called “It’s Amazing;” it’s a song about how surprising/amazing it is that he is as popular as he is from his highly controversial all-autotune album 808s and Heartbreak. It’s also a new favorite for me at karaoke.

During the Storytellers session, he performed this track, but in the middle (about 1:43 in) started speaking to the beat of the song, and during the speech, he outlined some things he thought were amazing. Michael Jackson. Michael Phelps. OJ Simpson. Yes, it’s a controversial list, but, on merits, these men did some amazing things; I’m not here to defend Kanye’s list, though.

I relate very much with Kanye’s song, and even the things he says in the middle of this performance. A lyric in the song is “no matter what, you’ll never take that from me.” It is ok to be amazing sometimes. So far this year, I’ve done a number of things that I think are amazing. Packing a restaurant for a food challenge. Interviewing a stand-up comedian. Operation: nWo (which is more of a personal initiative than anything). Gathering 20+ people to celebrate 1 year of this blog. And with all of the negativity and trolls and nasty emails and such, nobody can take that from me.

Everybody does amazing things. I think it’s important to recognize amazing things. If you do something amazing, reward yourself for it.