Excellence

Sydney Mory
April 28, 2008
Mrs. Konjura
Excellence Essay

Excellence

Excellence, the fact or state of excelling; superiority; eminence (Dictionary.com.) Is excellence really what everyone thinks it is, or is it just an opinion at that precise time?

When I am told that an event is "excellent", I don’t necessarily perceive excellence. I used to think of a gold medal or first place trophy, as an example of excellence. I look back at the time in my life when I was involved in karate, and my goal was to win a gold medal or a first place trophy. Through daily training and practice, I finally reached my goal of winning a gold medal in sparring. I thought it was excellence at the time, but when I stepped away from the event, I found out that the boy I beat went to the same school as I did, but attended different practice sessions. He was upset at me for beating him and never talked to me again. Looking back, I feel that my happiness was attained by my achievement of "excellence" over someone else, who then felt that he was second best. Also the tournament that I had been a part of was a state tournament, I would have had to excel at the regional and national levels if I was truly to achieve real excellence.

Later on in life I found school work became the main priority in everyone’s life. It was a chance to be top of the class and achieve “excellence” in classes. Students get to tell others of their classroom work. Teachers tell classmates of students' successes. Administrators post lists of model students. Parents brag about their child's grades. Excellent students names are printed in the community's newspaper.

Due to my dyslexia, I found that this achievement of excellence leads to unbelievable frustration. It takes me three to four times as long as an average student to complete assignments. Teachers have told me that I am just lazy, or that I don't want to succeed. Fellow students sometimes don't accept me. I tried to get my work done in the set time, and even tried cheating, but I found that the “excellence” I was striving for wasn't about what I was to be learning, or even about me. The only reason I was doing any of it was for my parents to be happy and the teachers off my back. My sister who has dyslexia worries so much about her grades that she yells and screams at her family. So why cheat, or be mean to others, just to say that you achieved excellence on a subject that you'll forget about five years from now? Or is it that we are looking for the superior feeling over a classmate who is average or has a learning disability?

Even in sports, all the coaches say that everyone must achieve excellence. Is excellence victory over someone else? Or is it doing the best a person can? What happens if there is a really great quarterback such as Dan Marino? Although he was an excellent quarterback, many people feel that he did not achieve excellence because his team never won the Super Bowl. Do people really remember or care who won the Super Bowl a week after it happened?

So the best thing to do is to achieve excellence as a person and if you achieve a goal in life, you do not become arrogant. You should do the best work possible at your job. You should become a great parent and neighbor. You also should be a type of person who other people want to be around. I once heard that a value of a person--their excellence--is shown by how many people come to their funeral. Funny thing is, we will never know if we reach that point of excellence.