Excellence

Excellence is the state or quality of excelling. I never have liked definitions of words that include a form of the word itself in the definition. That's just a side thought though. This morning I read another article on excellence, pursuing excellence, seeking excellence, striving for excellence, accepting only excellence, and settling for nothing short of excellence. The author suggest, if we cannot do something with excellence we should not do it, or even attempt to do whatever it is.

I thought about that for a very long time today and have decided that excellence can be very limiting. Most of the things I do are not excellent by my standards and certainly not by my critics standards. Much of what I do though is pretty good, and more often than not, good is excellent. I'm discovering the excellence concept is stifling. When I think about all the wonderful, crazy, insane good ideas that turned out far better than ever imagined, I realize that excellence is over rated.

So I am not a fan of excellence. Excellence becomes an unrealistic standard setting people up to fail. That's why I'm a fan of good.

My son has been has been saying this unknown to me quote lately, "If the sky is the limit, there would never be footsteps on the moon." Those footsteps are a collection of really good ideas, and not one of those ideas alone was excellent. I think excellence is over rated, I think excellence is an illusion that wastes time and energy or worse, stops good from growing.

Do something good today, if it turns out to be excellent well, that's excellent!