Kadoka High School
Kadoka, South Dakota
Teacher: Teresa Shuck
Have We Abandoned Excellence
By Tracey Fite
11th Grade
Have we as Americans abandoned excellence; that is what I am asking myself for this essay.
Does everyone strive for the best or do they settle for second best? I know that as a High School student, I settle for second best more than I should. Many times I have also heard stories of many adults who have settled for less than the best.
If the younger generation of this age isn’t taking advantage of excellence, does that mean that our country won’t strive for excellence as these younger children grow older and begin to run our country? I surely hope that they learn that you don’t get anywhere when you always settle for second best.
From what I hear, people who are our parent’s age settled for less too. This leads me to believe that as we, the teens of today, grow older and our own children are teens, it will only get worse. I don’t understand why people stopped striving for excellence. Back when people sewed their own clothing, grew their own food, and raised their families they strived for nothing less than the best. They took the time to make sure every stitch was perfect, every pickle had just enough sweetness but still made you pucker, and every child was just as polite if not more than the next. Then came the newer, bigger, better machines and technology. I think this is when people started getting lazy, if you will, and stopped striving to be excellent and settling for second best. These days are all about getting as much done as possible in the smallest amount of time. With the machines we have these days, companies can put out supplies in bulk in no time. Now, we have machine so we can sit back and push a button and yet our work looks amazing.
Still, there are many jobs where you can’t sit behind a machine. You have to use hands-on skills for many of the jobs in the medical field. I hope that all of the doctors in this day and age strive to be the best and want nothing short of excellence. What is going to happen if the whole world is okay with being second best? Would we have people with broken bones and only have casts that halfway cover the breaks?
What about our schools and schooling? If our kids aren’t striving to be the best and don’t really care about school, what will happen to our post High School educations?
The kids might stop getting higher educations and our Universities, Vo-tech’s and colleges might have to close.
I also think they way we dress and present ourselves shows how for we go to achieve excellence. These days, when you go into a store, you see many different types of people. Many people have on sweats and baggy old t-shirts or sweatshirts. On the other hand, though, you see people who are dressed very elegantly. Many of the prominent business people who have strived to be the best are dressed very nicely and carry themselves well. The people who don’t care if they are the best and settle for second best, show it by the way they dress and carry themselves.
There are a lot of good people who strive for excellence and will only settle for the best. I don’t mean that the people who settle for second best aren’t good people but they don’t set a very high standard for all other American. If all we had in this world were people who settled for second best, we wouldn’t be a leading nation. We’d likely be a third world country. We would probably have a great deal of poverty and many people without jobs or homes. Many kids would most likely be getting jobs to help support their families like they had to back when times were tough and parents alone could not support their families. Those kids definitely were striving to be the best. They gave up the things that kids have these days take for granted. This is something that makes me proud to know. It shows that even though we have lost some of our drive to achieve excellence, we could still get it back. This makes me very proud to know that if I want to achieve excellence, there are probably other kids like me out there.
Questions
Ask Yourself
Q1- Am I really where I want to be?
At this point in my life I am ok with were I am at. I know I could be doing better but I think I still have many good thinks coming my way.
Q2- Am I moving in the direction that will enable me to make the greatest contribution?
Right now I have my mind set on going to college, or at least getting a higher education that high school, so I think that I am making the right choices.
Q3- If I could achieve my highest goals, what would my accomplishments look like?
I would have everything that made me happy, a successful life, a great career, a wonderful family and I could look back and be proud of where I was in the past.
Q4- Do I recognize excellence and search it out or do I find mediocre acceptable and am willing to settle?
I think because I am young and don’t fully understand the importance of being the best I can be and full accomplishing what I want to get done in my life I settle for mediocre more than I probably should.
Q5- Do I seek out people, books, movies and other things that encourage me to be the best I can be?
I look for the good in all people so I’m sure that all the people I am around aren’t the best but they do tell me to go for my goals, I guess when I read books and watch movies I don’t really think about how they affect my life.
Q6- Do I recognize the best in others?
I always try to find the good in everyone so I would say that I do. I always try to encourage all my friends to try their hardest to achieve their goals, so yes I would say I do see the best in others.
Time Article
Q7- Interpret this quote from paragraph nine: “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion.”
To me it means that there is a question of whether people can achieve the best and still settle for second best at the same time.
Q8- Argue pro and con Morrow’s contention that “Americans not yet successful (the struggling, the underclass) are apt to aim at ease, not excellence”?
Many of the Americans who are not yet successful do stop at second best when they feel comfortable with where they are, but many others who are struggling do anything and everything they can to achieve excellence.
Q9- Explain what Morrow means when he says (A) “the confusion contaminates character and disables ambition.” Do you agree?
I think that is true to a point, although, other times when young people get confused as to what they want to do with their lives they still strive to be the best and get what they want.
Q10- Argue pro and con the effect of over stimulation and under stimulation as discussed in paragraph 10.
If you over stimulate some things people are going to get tired of hearing it or discouraged and they will stop trying. Although, if you don’t stimulate some things enough people are going to think that it is no big deal, why try to strive for it, so they get bored and quit.
Q11- Contrast practical excellence with metaphysical excellence as used in Morrow’s last paragraph.
Practical excellence is what many people consider the best such as things they can buy or own and metaphysical excellence is what people consider to be the best buildings and the most beautiful palaces and the things which they cannot own.
Q12- Copy and interpret your two favorite quotes. Explain why you chose them.
“Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime” Chinese Proverb
This quote makes me think of excellence. If you give something to a person they won’t try to go out and do it on their own, but if you teach them something they will be interested to see if it works and they will go out and try to make it work. I chose this quote because it reminds me of how hard my ancestors worked to teach their children and the children after than what it means to work for what you want to achieve in your lifetime.
“I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” William Henley
To me this quote means that you are the only one who can decide what you will get out of your life and what you will give up. I chose this quote because it makes me realize that if I chose to be second best and am disappointed later it is only my fault and I can’t blame anyone else for the way my life turned out.