Excellence.

I have been thinking about excellence. If I'm being quite honest, it started just watching people. Maybe, it was the way I was raised. Maybe, it was something I picked up from the mission, but it's something that is deep, deep in me. The thought of excellence. The thought of doing something good. Not just good, but well. Not just well, but thorough, thought out. Completing a task from start to finish.

It's a lost art. It truly is art.

A lot of us think of excellence as something only obtainable by a few. As if Michael or Dominique, Da Vinci or Picaso, or real great men like Elder Ballard or President Monson are the only ones capable of doing great things. I don't get it.

There is something special about doing a job well. Consider for a moment that everything is a job. Everything. When you get up in the morning, when you make breakfast, when you do school work or your job, everything can be apart of being excellent.

I don't know when it became the social norm to just suck at everything. I don't know when it became a social norm for people to be dirty. I don't know when it became a social norm to feel entitled to things. I don't know, I don't care.

I just feel like we need to change. I have these problems too. The thing is there is a special feeling to doing a good job on things.

 There is one thing I have learned from being a designer. You can tell who has taken the time. You can tell who started the night before. There is less substantial information. There is a lack of substance. When you rush on something you miss the details. There is no way a design that took two weeks will ever be as thought out as one that took two days.

Consider another example, the Savior, Jesus Christ. Consider that he noticed every detail, even down to a woman touching His clothes in a crowded street. He never left a stone unturned. Can you imagine that when He washed the Apostles feet on that Sacred Occasion that their feet were left half dirty? I imagine their feet cleaner than at any other time in their life.

I know this sounds more like a church talk/sermon than anything. I just can’t imagine sometimes what’s going through the minds of people. An extra half hour to the day, taking time to consider the things less thought about will change our lives. But really though. Do something.

Honestly, I need this lesson myself. Maybe that's why I've been dwelling on it lately. But be real. Stop being lazy. There's no time like the present, says my wood shop professor. If my Mom saw me being lazy or my Dad....they'd mess me up. Stop half-butting things. That's what my Dad would say. Stop half-butting things.