Acheive excellence

yesterday at work we had a brown bag presentation (basically, everyone brings their lunch and listens to a presentation…whatever.) one point this particular presenter harped on the entire time was “acheive excellence. whatever you do, wherever you do it…be excellent.”

its like in church when steve shows the verse about wisdom “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding” -Proverbs 4:7 (look it up! it’s good!)

But seriously. How? When someone says “go out and excell; get wisdom” how does one go about that? clearly i’m not going to walk into the local fast-food chain and ask for excellence with a large side of wisdom. i can’t grab a shovel, go to the front yard and dig up some greatness buried in a casket of understanding.

in a world where we are so accustomed to just “getting” what we need, usually for a minimal fee we’re willing to fork over, being told to get something so intangible is downright frustrating.

plus, how do we know when we’ve gotten wisdom? when excellence is acheived? i can think of no one who has stopped mid-stride and said “well there ya go. i’ve got wisdom now. i’ve acheived excellence. catch ya later!”

so maybe that is the point- we’re striving for excellence and wisdom and all of these other abstract ideas knowing in the back of our brain that we’ll never acheive them. for a perfectionist like myself, that is the utmost of frustration. but, like most crazy people, i’ll stubbornly plug along just in case i stub my toe on the can of wisdom hiding in my pantry.

 

“turn up the music, turn it up loud. take a few chances, let it all out. cause you won’t regret it, lookin back from where you have been…cause it’s not who you knew and it’s not what you did…it’s how you lived”