Excellence Without Excuses

Today is my mom's 48th birthday!!! WooHoo!!! She gave birth to me when she was 16 years old and then gave me two sisters by the time she was 18. This means that she gets to enjoy her empty nest and her grandchildren before reaching menopause. 

That is not something that will happen for me, so I think it's pretty darn cool.

In celebration of my mom, I will shine a little light on a lesson she worked tirelessly to instill in my sisters and I: Excellence without Excuses.

Now, she didn't call it that. Her language was a bit more colorful back in the day. What she called it is irrelevant to what she meant and how it's still relevant.

If my mother told us to clean the kitchen, simply washing the dishes wasn't going to cut it. We had to wash dishes, clean the counter, stove, table and floor nightly. Once a week we were required to clean the inside of the refrigerator. Of course, we also had to handle the trash. Anything less meant we had failed to do what we were told. 

Also, when you cleaned the kitchen, it had to be done to a certain standard. There could be no crumbs or grease on anything. My dad would do a check by sliding the palm of his hands on the surfaces and dishes and the soles of his feet on the floor. If he felt anything that should not have been there, he would wake us up in the middle of the night and we would stay up until it was done correctly.

These were not fun times. But this method worked. And it worked well.

You see, my mother wanted us to understand that if we were going to have our name associated with something, it had better be the best we could get or do. She wanted us to realize the importance of impressions. She wanted us to put forth work that would be respected and appreciated for its quality, timeliness and consistency.

My mother wanted people to feel concerned if we ever presented something done poorly, instead of being surprised when the work was done well.

Excellence was the standard in my childhood home. Mediocrity was neither applauded or accepted. As far as my mother was concerned, "when you know better, you do better", and she expected our best. At all times. In all things.

This included sports, music, church lessons, school, chores and behavior.

And though she expected our best, she didn't mean being better than everyone else all of the time. In fact, she once told me, "You don't have to be better than everybody else, but you better end up better than you started." 

And who better than my mother to give such wise advice. You see, she went to and graduated from college with a four year degree. She entered into the career she's excelled in over the past 20+ years making history along the way. She's accepted, learned from, apologized for and walked away from mistakes that she made. She is an active learner, on purpose. She's always seeking ways to end the game of life better than she started.

What I find most amazing is the fact that when she first introduced the concept of excellence, she wasn't close to God and yet, excellence is a God concept.

God wants our everything when we serve Him. He doesn't want anything from us that we don't want to give. And we want the same from Him. We don't want Him to kinda, sorta protect, love, provide for or save us. I mean, what if Jesus had only completed half of His mission? What if He had only died, never to rise again? 

I'm so grateful for my mother. I've learned so much from her and I'm sure there's plenty more from where it came from.

Signed,

A Newly Domesticated Lady