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Carolyn Smagalski
Self Mastery
Founder - Editor - Host
"Excellence means when a man or woman asks of himself more
than others do," wrote Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1956).
Gasset was a Spanish philosopher and essayist, professor of
the University of Madrid and founder of the magazine
Revista de Occidente. As an author, he wrote on such
topics as politics, history, and art, as well as epistemology,
ethics, metaphysics and the history of philosophy.
He was also founder of Espăna Review and Faro
and co-founder of El Sol. In 1914, Ortega was elected
to the Royal Spanish Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
He was also a co-founder of the League of Political Education.
He lectured throughout Europe, often speaking in Germany and
Switzerland, as well as in the United States. In 1949, he
was invited to speak at the Center for the Humanities
in Aspen, Colorado.
This was a man who did not just lecture on excellence - he
lived it! He was dedicated to it, and his life of
accomplishments is a reflection of that dedication.
Another man of great accomplishment was Booker T. Washington.
In his book Up from Slavery, he recounts his early
years on the Burroughs tobacco farm. At that time, educating
a slave was not within the limits of the law, so he was given
the task of carrying books to school for one of Burroughs'
daughters. Of this period of his life he wrote, "I had the
feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study would be
about the same as getting into paradise."
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1865 gave him freedom, but
there was little opportunity for the uneducated, so he took a
job in a salt mine at 4 a.m., in order to attend school later
in the day. He believed the key was education, and dedicated
his life to that end. In 1881, he founded Tuskeegee Institute
in Alabama, where he became recognized as the nation's
foremost black educator. He wrote, "Excellence is to do a
common thing in an uncommon way."
Do all things with excellence as your trademark. Do not begin
anything without dedicating yourself to it. Half-hearted
commitments lead to abandonment. Dedicate yourself to
excellence, and you will achieve levels greater than you knew
were possible.
Content copyright © 2003-2008 by Carolyn Smagalski. All rights
reserved. This content was written by Carolyn Smagalski.
If you wish to use this content in any manner, you need
written permission.
Contact Carolyn Smagalski
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