Excellence and Perfection

"Strive for excellence, not for success" is a commonly heard catch-line. What does it mean?

Excellence is a drive from inside [One of my friends has already blogged about this]. The drive for excellence is motivated only for the purpose of self-satisfaction. People who try to strive for success alone often find themselves in trouble, as success is a relative term whose terms of reference keep changing with time.

It is observed that those who strive for success are often perfectionists, that is they seek to finish [and add finishing touches to] a job properly till the last count. I am not saying that being perfect is wrong. But it must not become an obsession, and hinder our self-improvement and the process of acquiring knowledge. Sometimes errors do occur. Sometimes they need to be corrected then and there. But at other times we need to 'let go'. Then only we learn the right way.

Excellence is something quite different. As Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan recently said, the people who really motivated him were not necessarily involved in publishing papers or doing world-class cutting-edge research, but were involved in the process of creating an understanding. It is a long-term process. Thus, the drive for excellence, unlike success, doesn't stop at a particular milestone. It goes on and on and on.

By being excellent, we are answerable only to ourselves. We don't have to satisfy whom I call 'others'. This attitude brings forth success in all our endeavours. For, such a person will also see a failure as a stepping stone to success. Freed of the fear of being shunned, such personalities soar high. They concentrate on the substance, not on the form.

Again, as I conclude, I echo the line, Excellence is a drive from the inside.