Excellence

Everyday we see people honored for being giants in their field. Be it engineering, acting, music, bravery or some other skill, we admire these people for their abilities and talents. As we watch award shows on TV, or possibly read about which music artist went platinum many of us feel a tinge of jealousy, wishing we were up on that stage or in front of that microphone. Maybe performing is not for us, rather it is using our talents in design or teaching or possibly innovation where we set ourselves above all the rest to create the next culture shattering invention.

The question is which one are we? No one wants to think of themselves as just one of the crowd, we like to believe we are all unique and more importantly an overachiever in some area. We are the pinnacle of a profession or talent, the question is what talent or profession is for us. I believe when I have had good friends come up to me and profess they are still searching for the meaning of life, they are really searching for their pinnacle or their area of excellence. What is it that they do superior to all others? We hear of others who go through strife and such dire life challenges that it hardly seems possibly to persevere, but yet they do. We can’t help wonder inside the confines and privacy of our own mind if we were put in that situation if we too would have overcome or shown remarkable patience or wisdom to achieve the same success as those we admire.

So on those long walks on warm spring days when we ponder life’s great questions and our own place in the universe know that within you there is a source of excellence. It may not be one that will ever be recognized on an award show, or by a US government patent, or even by a school child 20 years later who professes that you saved their life, but there is something in each of us.

One of these days we will actually figure out what it is.