Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.  –Horace Mann 

Victories come in many forms.  We have all won at something.  But winning a victory for humanity is an order of magnitude that exists on a scale that is a bit more expansive.  Still, students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio are challenged every day to let this superb challenge settle into their consciousnesses and into the core of their beings.  I trust that they accept this challenge not as an admonition, but as a gift that elevates their lives and helps them focus their pursuits for the good of all. 

Those of us with few trophies and small bank accounts love to embrace life in ways other than with money. We find a victory in any achievement that benefits others.  It need not be something worthy of a Nobel prize.  Helping to build a school is an achievement.  Graduating from that school is a higher achievement.  Teaching at that school is yet a higher achievement.  Inspiring your students to live productive, worthy lives is a glorious achievement.  The pay off is rarely seen in money or bonuses, rather it satisfies that fundamental urge most of us have to seek excellence in what we do.   

Excellence:  Find it. Embrace it.  Live it.  We get only one chance at life.  If there are other lives to live, Providence is kind enough to wipe the slate clean between incarnations.  Whatever our beliefs, we do not get to bask for long in the glory or the limelight of anything we do, but a good feeling within ourselves is not a bad thing.   

We think with our brains, but we accomplish things with our hands.  Five is a number represented by the number of fingers on one hand.  To me that number represents the number of trusted friends that each of us is allotted to have in our lives.  If you believe you have more, you are probably too trusting with your feelings. Five is probably the total number of talents we each possess (I could be a bit generous with that count).  I also have the suspicion that we are destined to find the opportunity to win but five victories that are worthy of our talents.  By that I mean that what is excellent for those with limited abilities is often routine for those with highly developed abilities.  The very gifted have the potential for dazzling forms of excellence; still, their numbers are limited although more noteworthy.  

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and an extraordinary thinker, was so impressed by Horace Mann’s challenge that he instructed his sister to have it inscribed on his grave marker.  He stated that the certain knowledge that we are all going to die gives us the focus and the drive to do something worthy of our talents.  I agree.  Examine life.  Find your talents. Do something worthwhile for humanity.  Die in peace knowing you fought the good fight and won some victory for us all.  Anything less is just passing by this way.