Excellence

A tourist once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making, an idol of God.

Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby.

Surprised, he asked the sculptor Do you need two statues of the same idol ?

"No said the sculptor without looking up, We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.

The gentleman examined the idol and found, no apparent damage.

Where is the damage? he asked.

"There is a scratch on the nose of the idol, said the sculptor still busy with his work.

"Where are you going to install the idol ?"

The sculptor replied that would be installed on, a pillar twenty feet high.

"If the idol is that far who is going to know, that there is a scratch on the nose"? the gentleman asked....

The sculptor stopped his work, look up at the, gentleman smiled and said I will know it"

The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not.

"Excellence " is a drive from inside not outside...

Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency...

When is Enough Ever Enough?

The secret of life is to know when enough is enough.

This was my father's favorite saying in his final years, and one of the last thing he said to me before he died. I was contemplating selling my house and moving to a smaller one, and that was his pronouncement on the subject.

It was kind of ironic, since there he was, a family doctor for forty years, gasping and wheezing over the phone, barely able to speak, dying from smoking too much.

But the fact that he learned the lesson late doesn't negate the truth. And it goes straight to the heart of the issue of gratitude; namely, that gratitude makes us feel like we have enough, whereas ingratitude leaves us in a state of deprivation in which we are always looking for something else.

That's why the idea of cultivating "the gratitude attitude" is so popular among twelve-step programs. As Emmet Miller notes in "Gratitude: A Way of Life".

"Gratitude has to do with feeling full, complete, adequate - we have everything we need and deserve; we approach the world with a sense of value."

Addictions of all sorts come from a sense of deprivation, a feeling of lack that the user believes can be filled with a substance or activity, whether it's drugs, shopping, alcohol or food.

Caught up in lack, we feed the need but never feel truly satisfied because our substance of choice can't fill the lack. Consequently we continue to want more and more.

As many people have pointed out, our consumer society owes its very existence to its ability to fuel a sense of never being satisfied.

If we were happy about the way we looked, for example, why would we spend billions on cosmetics and plastic surgery?

Or on expensive cars that supposedly convey a certain image that we don't have?

An attitude of gratitude gets us off the treadmill and out of the rat race. As we cultivate a true and deep appreciation for what we do have, we realize that our sense of lack is, for the most part, an illusion. No matter our material circumstances, the richness of our soul is ultimately what brings happiness, not another Martini, bigger breasts, or the latest video game.

In the words of Lao Tzu, "He who knows enough is enough will always have enough."

-Written by Dr. Vincent Ryan-