January 20th, 2013. Henderson Francis West is inaugurated as the
forty-fifth President of the United States of America. This is still hard for me to write as it
still seems so incredible to me as an individual, let alone as someone who has been
characterized by others as the “greatest man alive”. People magazine actually gave me that
infamous title in 2018 much to my personal embarrassment. A few of my more enthusiastic supporters have
even characterized me as the “greatest man in the history of the world”. Once again this is a completely incredulous depiction
of me and one which is simply ridiculous.
I am of course flattered and equally appreciative of
such extreme praise, but I still consider thoughts of this nature unequivocally
strange. I am, however, level-headed
enough to see the origin of such claims.
For example, one achievement I will readily acknowledge that has had
profound impact is my contribution to the overall health of the population of
the planet. I will admit freely and
proudly that I have delivered a great deal in my time, and I am very receptive
to the praise I receive in this area. To
me, my contribution in terms of world health is of the greatest significance.
Through my business successes, I have been able to
provide to literally millions of people proper nutrition through the
distribution of the universally recognized “NutrisHouse” brand. The recipients have benefitted not only in
receiving proper nutrition but also from receiving dignity, stability and an
appropriate level of quality of life such that overall enhanced and peaceful
living conditions became possible around the world. In return, I have been fortunate to receive
success and wealth far beyond what any single man should ever possess. Most importantly to me though, through my
wealth and success I had been offered a platform to exert influence and change
for the betterment of society and this is truly the greatest reward in my life.
Some other people give me my greatest credit for my
global contributions in terms of the numerous relief and charitable efforts
that I have first-handedly developed and moved forward, not only in my own business
world, but across the corporate and charitable landscape in general. My efforts, in the humanitarian realm, have led
to the expanded expectations of charitable organizations and even more influentially
on corporations and how they operate.
Corporations were to become more tangibly involved and extremely
influential wherever they conducted business rather than be merely
fund-raisers, check writers or public relations opportunists.
From my perspective, my greatest contribution in the
humanitarian area though was not so much in the area of physical, financial,
medical or on-ground mobilization.
Rather, I take the greatest pride in being a catalyst for a new level of
willingness to solve the world’s problems by private individuals and
organizations in general. Up until the
year 2012, most people looked to government and charities to fulfill the
humanitarian role. I was able to
leverage a truly caring mindset and attitude specifically of young Americans to
spear-head a cultural shift where young citizens would actually go to parts of
the world that required knowledge or relief efforts and give their time, education
and muscle. This mindset as it turned
out was critical as well for these people in their employment as they strived
to work with companies that reflected their spirit of generosity.
The result was that corporations came to realize that
through legitimate on-ground humanitarian efforts locally and internationally,
the value of their companies increased as their brand value increased. The era of exploiting developing nations,
leveraging humanitarian efforts for Public Relation improvement and profiteering
as the world continued to decline was coming to an end. I fortunately was able to show a new path
that ultimately provided improved world standards and delivered increased
corporate profits.
I feel comfortable in taking pleasure in the fact that
my contribution in the humanitarian realm far exceeded the negatives and as a
result, many of the world’s greatest inequities are being addressed, and a lot
of them have been eradicated. This is
what I truly want my legacy to be though I know it will not. I understand this though, as my efforts in
restoring democratic values and instilling a contribution valuation mindset
have had long-lasting profound effects on the world.
My greatest contribution in America was in terms of
changing many of the institutions and fundamental thought processes so that we
were able to move-forward in a ridiculously complicated and globalized
world. As I mentioned, in the early
twenty-first century, most American institutions had become thoroughly inept at
being able to even function let alone strive for effectiveness. I figure that one can easily make the
argument that I might never have even won the 2012 election, if the
governmental processes were not as broken as they were at the time. It was this extremely broken system that I
completely despised that ultimately permitted me to win. Life can be supremely ironic.