Friday, March 6, 2009

Being Excellent IV

"Excellence is not a singular act but a habit."

--Aristotle

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've thought of this and sure it may be kind of true. But I honestly think excellence is a balancing act. Sure you can excel at one thing if you make it a habit, but then you lose everything else. To be truly excellent, you have to be good at a lot of things and that's about maintaining all things in moderation as a habit - and that is really hard.

I might be overthinking this.

Judith Ellis said...

No, Meena, not at all. Good point.

Perhaps variance and balance can be included in that which is habitual. So, being excellent need not be one-dimensional, neither does being habitual.

I am most certainly not one- dimensional. But the many things that I do, perhaps amid seemingly disarray to others, is very habitual. It is the habit of being excellent, that allows me to do well in various things.

"To be truly excellent, you have to be good at a lot of things and that's about maintaining all things in moderation as a habit - and that is really hard."

Some may argue that this is the exact opposite. I happen to agree that variance adds to excellence. Though, many who have focused like a laser beam in one area, have also excelled and are "truly excellent."

Personality may matter here.

Anonymous said...

I guess that example of a laser beam kind of speaks to my point. Yes, they are excellent, but for that and in that thing. Yes, they are excellent and may even be recognized by the world for it.

However, I guess for me - excellence involves a "breadth" so to speak.

Also, you are right - it is habitual overall or at least habitual for certain facets that allows it to be attained.

I suppose I was thinking of excellence as an "overall" thing about ppl.

Judith Ellis said...

Meena - Thanks for your words. They matter. Perhaps there need not be a narrow definition for some things; maybe excellence is one of these. We, however, know it when we see it no matter how it is attained. The habitual aspect seems most akin to it.