Excellence Anonymous

Excellence: a virtue, an ideal, a lifestyle. Excellence has not only come to embody myself; my actions, from their very core, induce excellence. A misconception exists that success is an indication of excellence—in fact, excellence is an indication of success. Excellence is a quantitative and qualitative measure of ability, evaluated against expectations, standards, and prior experiences.

Character, athletics, academia, and societal interactions are all aspects of life in which excellence has become expected of me. Notwithstanding academic and athletic prosperity, my successes are not what make me excellent. What makes me excellent is my determination, ambition and courage employed in my feats of greatness. Mastery of the English language is not what makes me excellent: my endeavors to learn Spanish and Polish are. Being a contributing member of four state championship teams, does not make me exceptional, but the lessons learned during each triumph and how they have shaped me as a person do. The ability to play the piano, violin, and drums are merely the results, rather than components of my excellence; the hours spent practicing, honing my skills, illustrate the higher standard to which I hold myself.

Despite enjoying numerous...