“I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.” — Socrates

“As he valued excellence less and less, he began to lose his skill in assuming it.” — Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine

For years I’ve been writing this blog, talking of that evasive personal excellence and its ancient philosophy, arete. We know that we’ll never reach it, only to get closer, until one day we release all we’ve gained to eternity. We may view this as an impossible goal and aim lower, or as a worthy height to ascend towards, offering views we’d never see if we hadn’t attempted to go even higher. Most of us tend to stick with attainable goals. And so it is that we are the lesser for having lowered our expectations of ourselves. That truth becomes apparent over time.

Still, we may reach that time when we recognize what we’ve opted out of and choose to opt in to something more. Just as bucket lists give people who are late to the game a chance to realize some of those dreams deferred for other things, we may choose an aspirational list of personal growth that leads us closer to our potential. We may not run a PR in the marathon as we grow older, but we can fully explore our intellectual potential for as long as our mental faculty allows.

The key is to determine a higher standard of living for which we will aspire towards, and attempt to exceed our standard from yesterday today. We may be late bloomers whatever our age, but damnit, we may bloom yet. We may aspire to arete, our evasive personal excellence, and grow to meet the potential within us. Life shouldn’t be a series of settlements of our standards for ourselves, but a steady climb to better. Shouldn’t it?