if excellence was the standard rather than the goal, would you behave differently?

This post probably should have come before last week’s one about harvesting dreams, but anyway.. we’re phasing outta that time of the year where the days fades into themselves and I’ll commit to being more organised moving forward. Aku whakapāha, my bad, appreciate you still !!

It’s probably not that big a deal ha yup still dramatic, the main reason I say that is because before getting to work on dreams and harvesting them or bringing them to life

— shouldn’t there be an interrogation of some sort of what those dreams are?

If they’re actually what we want to invest time and energy into? IF they’re actually ours?! And follow up on whatever māramatanga (insights) that come from that exercise with the necessary adjustments to the cultivation and harvesting methods.

So it’s a little reversed, but today we’re interrogating dreams.

Not the dreams themselves, that’s an inside job for each of us to do with our own stuff.. I want to focus on the filter by which they pass through to qualify as dreams or goals or something we aspire to be, do, have or give.

Woven and intertwined into the very fabric of who we are is the capacity for greatness and excellence. Not just the capacity for it but the preordained expectation that it is inherent in us to make it manifest.

The definition is subjective, relative to situations and circumstance but the prevalence is undeniable.

Not just because there’s cool, catchy, inspirational quotes that say so, not just because it feels good to think about yourself in that light… because it’s thousands of years old, imbued in our DNA, it’s in our whakapapa (genealogy, ancestry) and refined by the experiences we have and the environments we’re exposed to.

Our tupuna (ancestors) or a māori worldview was that excellence was the minimum standard and any less was not good enough for their contribution to their people and thus the world. We know this because we have karakia, oriori, waiata, mōteatea, pūrākau, kōrero and art forms which reiterate this exact sentiment.

Te Ōhāki o Houmaitawhiti, Te Oriori o Tuteremoana, Tāne retrieving the baskets of knowledge, being born of light (Urutengangana whakapapa) just some quick examples off the top of my head. And there are many more, we need only look, listen and remember….

Perhaps consider this with any resolutions or goals you may have set or reviewed for the upcoming future, if excellence was the standard you held for yourself, something you had unlimited supply of already inside of you rather than the goal somewhere out there to strive toward — would you behave differently?

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.