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The closer you get to excellence in your life, the more
friends you’ll lose. People love you when you’re average because it makes them
comfortable. But when you pursue greatness it makes people uncomfortable. Be
prepared to lose some people on your journey.
– Tony A. Gaskins Jr.
I don’t agree with this statement made by Mr. Gaskins. And I
will try to clarify some of the points that are presented here according to my
experience and some of the well-known facts about excellence.
What is excellence? Is it a negative idea or pursuit?
Excellence is the quality of being outstanding or extremely good. We are all after quality.
We all desire outstanding service and the extremely good in anything we
encounter. Who doesn’t want excellence? Why will your friends leave you if you
are after excellence? What kind of friends are these? Why will they envy you or
become uncomfortable when you are excellent in what you do?
Maybe
what Mr. Gaskins is driving at is, there are people who envy people who are
excellent managers, leaders, bosses, etc.
Now what kind of people are these who have reached excellence and then
were abandoned by some of their friends? What is the underlying reason for such
desertion? There are two sides to this phenomenon if I may call it that. On the
side of the person seeking excellence, he may have stepped on some people’s
heads to get to his goal. Or he may have been so proud of what he is after,
that he neglected some of his friends. Or his pride of being excellent made him
shun the company of friends who are otherwise close to him. Excellence became a
repellent because something in this person changed which some of his friends
find uncomfortable. On the side of the friends, there are friends who can’t
stand people who reach for the stars. There are others who assume that when
this friend of theirs become successful in his pursuit of excellence, he may
not have time for them and he will seek other friends of his level. He may
appear as a god to his former friends who now chose not to have anything to do
with him anymore.
I
am confused as to what kind of excellence Mr. Gaskins is referring to here. For
me, excellence is something good. It benefits both the person who strives for
excellence and his friends who should support him in his quest. In reality,
when a person is known to be excellent in what he does, the more friends he
gains. When do we know if a person has reached excellence? We see it in his
daily living. An excellent person to me is a humble person. How can you call a
man excellent if he is full of pride and doesn’t know how to be socially
graceful in public? Excellence will also show good character and personality.
One cannot be truly excellent if he is lacking in manners and etiquettes.
Excellence covers all aspects of a person’s life. He should be excellent
mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually. And which then makes it
impossible for him to lose friends, unless his friends are the bitter types and
he has no control over these kinds of friends who have a twisted understanding
of excellence.
In
the Bollywood movie, Three Idiots,
the main theme of the story is the pursuit of excellence. The all-embracing
idea is, “Seek excellence and a string of successes will follow you all your
life.” The three friends in the movie became closer to one another after one of
them achieved excellence. Even the bad friends became good friends in the end.
All is well.
Excellence
should not be a reason for people to get separated in life. Excellence should
bind all people into one coherent whole. In fact, everyone should reach for
excellence. In the Bible, the word is “perfection” Jesus said, “Be
ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48
But then again, the devil is out there to disrupt the
heavenly purpose which is bringing the lost image of God back to man
(perfection). Yet again, that’s another story.
These are the synonyms to EXCELLENCE: very
good, superb,
outstanding, exceptional, marvelous, wonderful, magnificent; preeminent,
perfect, matchless, unbeatable, peerless, supreme, prime, first-rate,
first-class, superlative, splendid, fine, beautiful, exemplary;
Informal synonyms: A1,
ace, great, terrific, tremendous, fantastic, fabulous, splendiferous, fab,
top-notch, dandy, divine, blue-ribbon, blue-chip, bang-up, skookum, class,
awesome, magic, wicked, mean, cool, out of this world, hunky-dory, A-OK,
brilliant, killer.
Why does one feel or believe that he is working hard to earn
everything in life?
Because man is carnal, he grew up with the belief that in
order to live a full life, he has to work hard for it. Everything then that he
has achieved and gained through his sweat is expected and acknowledged as his
contribution to the world he lives in or the immediate circle he belongs to and
represents. There’s a sense of pride in this daily endeavor but God is out of
the equation. God is never acknowledged.
But when we pray as believers of Jesus, we are reminded
daily to attribute everything we are and have to Him. We say, “Give us this day
our daily bread.” Because all things belong to God and we are just appointed as
stewards or caretakers of His possessions, the blessings we receive is given on
a daily basis. We are supplied the things we need just enough that we can share
and give to others as they also come in need at the given moment. Now you ask,
if all of us are given daily bread, how come some still want a portion of what
we were given?
The giving of the daily bread is claimed by faith. As
children of God our part is to meekly obey and wait for His fulfillment of the
promise. Some of us unfortunately don’t have the faith that will assure them of
daily bread, but God is good and that he uses us, the stewards, to make sure
our bread is shared to those who still lack the faith to receive the blessings
we get through our faith. We are not to hold back some things that God
entrusted to us to share with others. If that will be the case, then we will
find ourselves in the same situation as those who are in need now because we
relinquished God’s trust and put in our own shoulders the work that God is
supposed to do in us and for us.
Give us this day our daily bread is a three-way street or a
full-circle. The blessings from God going to us, the blessings we receive being shared to others, and the act of giving praising
God the giver at the same
time the receiver of the blessings likewise praising God. *****************************************************
who has a more acceptable grocery store courtesy, men or women? last night i was in a famous grocery store pushing my
cart along, when at the end of a lane, there was a push cart left by the owner and it was blocking my way out. i looked around
to see if i could signal whoever left the cart to move it out of the way so i could pass. i hummed a tune to prevent my growing
anger from escaping into a fusillade of unmentionables; i did that for the sake of my youngest daughter who was standing just
beside me. later, a woman, maybe thirtyish, came to reclaim the pushcart in question. i smiled at her to signal that she had
to move her cart so i could pass. she really had to move because if she didn't she couldn't continue with her shopping. as
i rounded the bend to make a u-turn to enter another lane, i almost bumped into another pushcart blocking the entrance to
the next lane! in my mind i screamed, "what the--" the owner of the cart, another woman, maybe twenty-something years old
was holding a can of soup or something and was reading the label like it was a novel in a bookstore. i said excuse me, i really
had to get in the lane, there were products i needed to purchase. when i was given leeway, another pushcart was parked horizontally
literally blocking the middle of the lane of this biscuits and chocolates section. aside from the pushcart, several baskets
of merchandise lined the bases of the produce stands with their owners reading the labels of the products. what's this? is
there an examination about the ingredients of these products which the grocery store might give to the customers? i was really
ready to explode and shout to the people to move out of the way! it was a Monday night for crying out loud! why don't these
people go home and watch "got to believe?" and majority of them are women! i haven't experienced getting angry at
men who were buying groceries the way i did these women who seem to think they own the whole grocery store! men are more sensible
when buying stuff. they just pick up what they need, pay the cashier then go! and they stay out of the way of other customers
so they won't block the lanes and if they pass, they give a right of way to other buyers who need to get to the stands where
products are displayed. there was one time i saw a mother carrying her baby and was using the pushcart as a breastfeeding
station! i can't pass through, cuz she really had these huge milking stations blocking the way. i can't disturb that, even
the baby was eyeing me with bulging retinas and corneas and other parts of the eyes! i waited for the mom to finish feeding
her baby; so while waiting, i went to another part of the grocery store to maximize my time. when i came back, the mom and
baby were still there! so i left my pushcart out on the hallway for a while and entered the lane. when the baby saw me coming,
it momentarily left the mom's tits and as it looked at me, it laughed! the baby laughed so hard, the mom couldn't help but
laugh too and her milking stations bumped each other as she laughed! i was so embarrassed i just ran back to my pushcart and
forgot the stuff i needed to get.
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