A Perfect Monday

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

~H. Jackson Brown Jr., O Magazine, December 2003



{Bolshoi Ballet}
{Photo Credit: Helix}



  When I first glanced at this quote I was initially awestruck by its apparent genius. As dancers we often think about excellence as being an outcome of perfection, perfect lines, perfect feet, perfect turn-out, so I was attracted to the thought/ idea that they could actually be separate terms with less correlation then I always thought.
 However when I really started to think about  the difference between perfection and excellence I got a little flustered, so I turned to my good'ol friend Mr. Dictionary for some advice...

Excellence: the state or quality of excelling or being exceptionally good; extreme merit; superiority

Excellent: exceptionally good; extremely meritorious; superior

Perfection: the state of quality of being or becoming perfect

Perfect: conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type

At this point I thought I understood  the difference between the two, but then I looked up their synonyms...

Synonyms of Excellence: arete, class, distinction, eminence, excellency, finesse, goodness, greatness, high quality, merit, PERFECTION, preeminence, purity, quality, superbness, supremacy, transcendence, virtue, worth, eclat.

Synonyms of Perfection: accomplishment, achieving, acme, arete, completion, consummation, crown, ending, entireness,evolution,exactness, EXCELLENCE, excellency, exquisiteness, faultlessness, finish, finishing, fulfillment, ideal, idealism, impeccability, integrity, maturity, merit, paragon, perfectness, phoenix, precision, purity, realization, ripeness, sublimity, superiority, supremacy, transcendence, virtue, wholeness.

And now I am even more confused then when I began. The definitions suggest that Excellence is being the best within ones own limits, and that Perfection is being the best within a certain ideal. The synonyms however suggest that they have the same/ very smillar meanings. I sat and thought about this for quite sometime, and I have come to this conclusion....
 As people we all judge ourselves by some standard, a standard that we see as being perfect. A person might look to a movie star, or their older sibling, or maybe as it is in ballet a person might judge themselves by an abstract idea of perfection that is ultimately unattainable. Poeple so closely correlate excellence with perfection, that it is not possible to think of something as being excellent without it being near to or perfect. Anyway that is my psycho-babble for this Monday.

On that note here are some things/ people I consider to be the absolute embodiment of perfection....





{Splendid Isolation: ABT.}





{Overwhelmed Aster Dress: Anthropolgie}





{Audrey Hepburn}
{ Photo Credit: Listall}





{Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir}
{photo credit: Myra Clarman}