In Pursuit of Excellence

If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.  (LinkedIN Author, Dr. Travis Bradberry)

We live in a difficult world. It’s an era in time where a winner is told that he should feel bad, rather than good for rising to the top.

A winner is someone who loses more times than he can count, but refuses to quit. A winner is someone who spends more time acting to fulfill his dreams than wasting time fantasizing about them. A winner is someone who demands excellence of himself, and feels personal shame for every moment he does not meet his personal expectations.

G-d demands that all of us be winners. We are commanded not to feel guilt when we win, but like we did our job. Repentance is the continuous process of improving who we are in order to reach the highest victory in our personal battle of good and evil.

We are commanded in the Gemara to mock the wicked. The Gemara goes on to explain that to do this, you have to be on a very high spiritual level. Since we aren’t on that level, it is inadvisable to go toe-to-toe with a wicked person because you may not be the one with the merit to beat him.

So why are we still commanded to confront evil?

Because the worst evil is what exists inside us. It is the voice that says you can’t do any better. The voice that says to stop trying, relax, and enjoy the physical pleasures of this world that suffocate the soul. It’s the voice that says, after we sin, stay down because there is no hope to fix this.

Evil, according to the Tanya, is anything good that simply gave up. At its core, evil is a loser.

That’s why it’s okay to mock the loser. We are commanded to destroy the one evil in this world we are qualified to challenge: the evil within ourselves. We can mock not just our evil inclination, but all the real consequences that will happen if we listen to it. Cutting him down psyches us up into a desire to keep fighting.

Take the mitzvah of personal holiness.

It starts with a small victory: walk past that woman without checking her out. One step forward towards a higher goal. Then it leads to more battles. Take down the posters. Put a filter on your home internet.

Then it gets tougher. You have to stave off every thought bombarding your senses. The battle culminates in a moment to moment fight against evil, or the drive to force you to give up on your pursuit of holiness by doing something that can destroy you.

What is the end result when we refuse to lose?

We become perfectionists. We become champions of excellence, demanding refinement in every detail of our lives big or small.

This ability we is never limited to just the battle. Much like the technologies developed in wars are used for productive purposes long after the war ends, the abilities we develop in our battles extend to all areas of our life.

At work mediocre is not enough.

In business every small detail is optimized.

With our family, every moment means something, and we do all that we can to make it special.

Everything we do uplifts us to a higher standard of personal excellence. Everything we touch is inspired with a brighter light of life.

It is the way G-d intended us to be. Pursuers of greatness with every act. Winners in all that we do. All we have to do is to ask for His help – every day.