Excellence

What is excellence? This is a very hard question to answer and there are many different ways to go about it answering it. I would start out by saying excellence is all about trying to do the best you can on whatever it is you are doing. Excellence is not about winning or coming out on top, it’s about having the commitment to surpass what is expected of you.

I think everyone achieves some sort of excellence in their life. Whether it is a first place medal or a participation ribbon people are always proud of themselves for at least something in their life. Some people feel pressure to achieve excellence. Sometimes its friends telling you “Oh come on, don’t be such a baby.” You feel pressured to do something that you think they will be proud of. Other times it’s your parents scolding you that you’re not do well in school. This brings on the idea of cheating. You might feel the need for cheating to a good grade, which in turn, will make your parents happy. Maybe you even want a better grade, so you’ll look over at someone’s paper, or maybe even copy someone’s homework. To me, this is not excellence. Just like Benjamin Hoff says in The Crooked Tree, “It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.” Sometimes all you need to do is use your time and your brain in its proper way. That is what excellence is to me.

Work Cited

Hoff, B. "The Crooked Tree"
Ludwig, M. D. (2004) "Look out for more Blairs"
Puka, B. (2005) "Student Cheating: As Serious an Academic Integrity Problem as Faculty Administration Business as Usual?"
Gibbs, N. (2003) "reading Between the Lies: A young reporter who stole and made up stories forces the New York Times to take stock"