Eleanor Rosalynn Carter said “you must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don’t win, at least you can be satisfied that you’ve tried. If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try – you don’t take the risk. As the wife of former President Jimmy Carter, Mrs. Carter knew new a lot about doing the best to obtain a goal in life. Her husband rose to the stature of U.S. President after several failures; however, he kept his on the mark trying to do the best and to do it well and strive for excellence when it came to his God given talents.
It’s been said that, “There’s a remarkable difference between 99 percent and 100 percent commitment. At 100 percent you see your problems all the way through to their solution. At 99 percent you can still find a way to take the path of least resistance.” We live in a culture where excellence is the exception, but God’s word says, “Be a different person with a fresh newness in all you do.”
All of us must be willing to pay the price, and here it is: “to win you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best. People will gauge your character by the height of your ideals, the breadth of your compassion, the depth of your convictions, and the length of your persistence.” Approach every task thinking how you can do it the best. If you are good at crunching numbers, strive to be the best number cruncher. If you are a skillful communicator then strive be the best in your craft. If you are a leader, then be the leader.
A former president of Yale University points out that “Hamlet could never have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club, or the New Testament composed by a conference.” The point that he was making is this; creative ideas usually come from individual efforts. And the great thing about life is if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you often get it. So always do your best in whatever craft you have. I leave you with the words of my father that he said to my brother and I at a young age – “If you dig a ditch, dig the best ditch possible.” Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Never Give Up!
By Chaplain Ghosten
chaplain@lhp.net
