"The Way of Excellence"

One of the greatest obstacles in the modern psyche to achieving ourdreams, becoming the-best-version-of-ourselves, and embracing ourdestiny is minimalism. Consciously or subconsciously, the minimalistis always asking, "What is the least I can do?" Minimalism is amind-set, a habit of the mind that can affect any area of our lives.

The litany of the minimalist is never ending.

What is the least I can do and still keep my job? What is the least Ican do and still get reasonable grades in school? What is the least Ican do and stay physically fit? What is the least I can do and raisemy children? What is the least I can do and keep my spouse fromnagging me? What is the least I can do and still get to heaven?

The minimalist wants the fruit of a certain toil but does not want totoil.

Minimalism breeds mediocrity. It is the destroyer of passion.Minimalism is one of the greatest character diseases of our life. Itis the enemy of excellence and a cancer on society. The problem is,culturally we encourage minimalism.

Our education systems foster, encourage, and reward this attitude. Thefinal exam is the main test of what a student has or has not learnedThis allows, if not encourages, students to cram knowledge into theirminds for an exam, knowledge they will almost immediately forget oncethe exam has ended. If you pass, you move on; if you fail, you mustrepeat the process. At the end of the course, you receive a piece ofpaper – the reward.

The word education comes from the Latin word educare, which means "todraw out." We do not teach our children the love of learning. We donot hold knowledge before them as a powerful tool for personaldevelopment.

We don't produce broadly educated, well-rounded leaders for tomorrow.We teach more and more about less and less. We don't draw out theindividual. We impose upon the individual – systems and structures. We don't reverence individuality, we don't treasure it, we stifle it andtry to stamp it out. We don't educate, we formulate. We abandon theindividual in his or her own need and uniqueness and "impose" the sameupon all.

We provide an education in specialization. We produce clones for themodern world. We throw people into a mold, which we call an education system, to form cogs for the global economic wheel, all the time dangling the golden carrot before them as incentive and reason.

Truth to be told, our modern education systems crush the very spiritthey claim to instill.

We need to return to the ancient Greek ideal of educating the wholeperson and crown that ideal with our modern understanding ofspirituality, as we strive to nurture every aspect of the human person– physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.

Minimalism is born from a lack of passion for the things we do.Wherever you find people doing things that they are not passionateabout, you will find minimalism.

Our legal systems and our modern interpretation of law are anotherprime example. Today, people tend to interpret the law such that theyconsider whatever they can get away with as right and whatever theycannot get away with as wrong (in many cases perhaps not even wrong –just "against the law," or inconvenient).

Speeding is a prime example. The speed limit is fifty-five miles perhour, but you know that the police will not stop you unless you aredoing more than sixty-four miles per hour.

The law obliges us only to the minimum. The problem is that obligingpeople only to the minimum breeds minimalism. And once in our system,this diseased mind-set creeps into other areas of our lives, takes agrip on our character, and significantly affects our work and ourrelationships.

The effects of minimalism are many. Minimalism eats away at thecharacter of a person, and therefore society, just as a disease eatsaway at the body one cell at a time. The minimalist suffers fromdreadfully low self-esteem. His low self-esteem is not the result offailure, but the consequence of not even trying. The minimalistdoesn't strive to excel; he strives to survive. The minimalist forgetsthat it takes just as much energy to avoid excellence as it does toachieve excellence. A person gripped by the mind-set of minimalismbecomes very self-seeking and contributes little to the common good ofhis community or society. The minimalist quickly becomes unfulfilledand miserable, but with no plan to change, he goes on, minimally,doing what he has always done and spreading the dissatisfaction andmisery that he has created for himself to everyone he meets. Theminimalist just goes through the motions. He is a prisoner and victimof the day-to-day drudgery that stifles the greatness of the human spirit.

The truth is that we probably all suffer from minimalism in one formor another. To larger and lesser extents, we are all minimalists indifferent areas of our lives. It is good that we are able to recognizethis, because minimalism is like a cancer: it spreads. The good newsis, there is a cure for minimalism.

In every age there has been a group of people who have escaped thisdiseased mind-set and risen above minimalism. These people aresuccessful in many different walks of life. They are achievers. Theygot the job done. They are leaders, heroes, legends, champions, andsaints. They didn't ask themselves, "What is the least I can do?" andthen proceed to lead dispassionate, boring lives of misery anddissatisfaction. Rather, they asked themselves, "What is the most Ican do?" With the vision inspired by this question, they then set outto do the most they could. Not merely activity, but activity driven bya deep sense of purpose. They did the most they could to the best oftheir abilities in a single lifetime.

When we look at their lives, we find men and women who had acommitment to excellence. They knew how to dream, and they were notafraid to dream the big dreams. They were filled with courage, andthat courage was born from knowing who they were and why they werehere. There was boldness and brilliance in the way they lived theirlives. As we look on as spectators, we are continually amazed by thepassion, enthusiasm, energy, and excitement they filled their liveswith. Their achievements are so many that they can only be summarized.And the greatness of these achievements will never be fully known tous – or them – for the effects of their vision and goodness continueto impact the lives of people every day.

Do not ask, "What is the least I can do?"; rather, in every situation,ask yourself, "What is the most I can do?" If you are willing, thisone question will introduce you to your better self and change yourlife forever.

Somewhere right now, someone is training for the next Olympic games.Can you imagine an Olympic athlete asking herself, "What is the leastI can do and still win the gold medal?" Champions don't takeshortcuts. Champions give everything they have to training,preparation, and competition. That is what makes them champions. Onthe day of competition, the day that really counts, every shortcuttaken in training comes to haunt the athlete.

Your character is your destiny. Building character is a task only forthe brave and dedicated. There are no shortcuts when it comes tobuilding character. If you wish to cure minimalism in your own life,to develop a complete commitment to excellence and an absoluterejection of mediocrity, the question you need to start askingyourself is, "What is the most I can do?"

Dicuplik dari "The Rhythm of Life" oleh Matthew Kelly. Halaman104-108.
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