Hi everybody...
Been a long time, i know. Finally, I have a copy of Varsolo's speech. He's here visiting the school. I found out that he's on his second course, computer engineering, after finishing his BS Physics course. Man this guy is so smart i feel my job is threatened. I just wish i get a permanent employment status before this guy graduates. Anyway, enough about me already...
The Rewards of Excellence
Varsolo C. Sunio
(This is a modified version of the speech I delivered last July 7, 2006 in PSHSWVC during its Foundation Day.)
Having graduated last March with the highest Latin honors is truly rewarding. It made my graduation day extra-special.
By this, I do not mean the reward of personal satisfaction that I felt during graduation for having done a job well done, though that of course in itself is already rewarding. To graduate summa cum laude is truly a reason to be proud of oneself, to be humbly boastful of oneself for having accomplished a feat only a few mortals could do. Graduating with the highest Latin honors is a recognition of my efforts, a vindication of my four years of hard work, the fruit of my labor, and surely I can’t help but feel so much fulfilled.
By this, I also do not mean the reward of popularity that I earned for myself because of my award, though that too feels even more rewarding. I do not deny that to be one of the top graduates of my batch has made me popular among my batch mates. Many of them know me or at least my name.
By it, I do not also mean the reward of having one’s market value increased tremendously, though that also is rewarding. Most especially nowadays that the corporate world has become more flat, where everyone has an equal fighting chance to compete and to climb up the corporate ladder, a summa cum laude title will at least give one a good competitive edge over others. To graduate with highest honors can be one’s passport to land to a high-paying job.
No, I do not mean any of these when I say that to graduate with the highest Latin honors conferred upon me is truly rewarding.
Having graduated summa cum laude is rewarding because I know I was able to meet the highest standards in my academic life. I was able to do my work well as a student according to the highest standards of academic evaluation, and to have done my job with utmost human perfection.
Excellence for the sake of service
This is important to me not because I love excellence per se. No, I don’t. Personally, I do not believe pursuing excellence merely for its own sake is ever worthwhile. Excellence, unlike truth, is by itself nothing and worth nothing. It is not an end in itself, but only a means for something else. The raison d’etre of excellence is not in itself, but in something outside of itself. But what is this something else for which we must strive to excel? What makes the pursuit for excellence something worthwhile, and so precious that makes it worth pursuing for a lifetime?
The answer should be clear: Service. The quest for excellence becomes worthwhile only if it is pursued for the sake of service. Service, and nothing else, is the only objective of excellence. To be of best service to others, because one is excellent: this is the only authentic reward of excellence.
I’ve already said this before in the talks I gave, but I do not mind repeating this idea again. Excellence assumes the stature of excellence only when it becomes a service for others. Service is the one thing that makes excellence worth pursuing. We strive for excellence because we want to serve others in a best way possible. Unless we are excellent, we can never serve others with utmost perfection.
“Truth was first in us before it was reflected,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the same way, excellence was first in the person before it was reflected in any of his work. The grandeur of Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are simply transcripts of excellence already within Leonardo da Vinci; what they do is simply reflect the excellence already within the man himself. All excellence we impress upon the world is first in ourselves: where no excellence is, no excellence can be called forth. No hollow man, therefore, can render an excellent service, for he does not possess a well of excellence where he can draw forth the water of excellence from. Only a man of excellence can serve his fellowmen with utmost perfection. The quality of what one gives flows from within.
All this helps us understand why we have bad politics. The reason why we have bad politics is because we don’t have excellent politicians. For how can we expect our politicians to excel in politics if they are not excellent to begin with?
It’s the same thing when we speak of science. The reason we are backward in science is that we have backward men of science. That’s why, one time, when someone asked me how to advance science, I said to him without hesitation: We can only advance science if we advance ourselves. We can only make science go forward if we go forward ourselves.
Time and again, I remember that episode in my favorite anime Naruto. One of the ninjas in the village of Konoha, like Naruto, also dreamt of becoming the Hokage, the strongest of all the ninjas and the leader of the village, not because of any desire for power, but because he wanted to protect everybody, the people he loved. He wanted to be the Hokage because as the Hokage he could best protect everybody. “I want to be the Hokage,” he says, “because I want to protect everyone.”
This should also be our reason for pursuing excellence: We have to strive for excellence because if we are excellent then we are most effective, and hence we can serve others and God in the best way possible. Only excellent people can offer excellent service: The quality of what one gives flows from within.
Excellence and Love
In the end, I think, what should animate us to excel is not simply service, but love, loving service for others and for God.
Excellence doesn’t simply mean meeting the highest standards in whatever you do, it also means putting utmost love to it. Excellence is not simply doing things with utmost human perfection, it also means doing things with greatest love.
No event in my life drives this point more clearly than the time when I worked for a hospital in Marikina as part of my immersion in my theology class. In that experience, I saw how the sick, especially those who are poor, are treated in a less human way.
This does not mean of course that the doctors don’t attend to the needs of the patients nor does it mean that they were not treated as a patient should be treated. But that’s the point: the delivery of medicine to these patients was merely a professional and technical activity. There was no touch of human love to it.
Someone once said that “the work of health care persons should be carried out not only as a technical activity, but also as a dedication and love of neighbor.” Excellence in health care delivery is therefore not simply a matter of doing it with utmost professional competence, it also is a matter of pouring so much love to it.
In the same way, when we deliver our service to a classmate who needs it most, to a friend who finds something hard, we not only help him in a best human way possible, we also help him in the most loving way possible.
Mother Teresa, in one of her speeches, shared an experience she had with a man whom she picked up from a drain, half eaten by worms and, after being cared for, the man only said to Mother Teresa, "I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as an angel, loved and cared for." Then, after all the worms were removed from his body, all he said, with a big smile, was: "Sister, I am going home to God" - and he died.
In that simple episode, Mother Teresa did not merely extend her professional competence, her service, to the man; she also poured out her love for him. She did not merely do things with highest human perfection possible; she also did them with the greatest love possible. And that is excellence.
Pursue excellence, not for its own sake, for excellence, by itself, is worth nothing, nor for the sake of popularity or increasing your market value, but for the sake of serving those important to you, to God, out of love.
Life’s Center
During one gathering with some young freshman fellows from UP Diliman, where I was the speaker, someone from the audience asked me to give them a few tips on how to excel in the academics. I told him if you want to excel, you have to find a center outside of yourself, a center bigger, higher and larger than yourself.
This was my advice to them, this is my advice to all of you now, especially to the young scholars present here today. Find a center bigger than yourself. This is the essence of living life epically, generously and excellently.
If your life’s center is in yourself, you strive to excel only because you want to glorify yourself. And I tell you, with this mindset, you won’t get any far in this life. But if you put your center to something bigger than yourself and commit your entire being to it, you yourself will become a person larger than life, a person of excellence.
Some time ago, I read a book entitled “Great Men and Women of Asia: Ramon Magsaysay Awardees 1958-1967”. It is a book which chronicles the tales of 15 Ramon Magsaysay laureates. The names of some of them are familiar to us: Mother Teresa, Akira Kurosawa and Dalai Lama. These are the people whose names command power, greatness of spirit, moral courage and service of society. These are the people who are larger than life. And what made them larger than life is precisely the fact that they have stood for something larger than themselves, they have committed their whole life to something beyond themselves.
I do hope that you will soon find your life’s center, as I have found mine. I have put my life’s center in God, and this has changed a lot in me. I’ve tried to do whatever I do, even the most mundane of things, with utmost human perfection, because only a work done perfectly can be made into a real offering to God. I’ve also tried my best to be perfect so I can better respond to the demands of love that God asks from me.
Thank you.
Been a long time, i know. Finally, I have a copy of Varsolo's speech. He's here visiting the school. I found out that he's on his second course, computer engineering, after finishing his BS Physics course. Man this guy is so smart i feel my job is threatened. I just wish i get a permanent employment status before this guy graduates. Anyway, enough about me already...
The Rewards of Excellence
Varsolo C. Sunio
(This is a modified version of the speech I delivered last July 7, 2006 in PSHSWVC during its Foundation Day.)
Having graduated last March with the highest Latin honors is truly rewarding. It made my graduation day extra-special.By this, I do not mean the reward of personal satisfaction that I felt during graduation for having done a job well done, though that of course in itself is already rewarding. To graduate summa cum laude is truly a reason to be proud of oneself, to be humbly boastful of oneself for having accomplished a feat only a few mortals could do. Graduating with the highest Latin honors is a recognition of my efforts, a vindication of my four years of hard work, the fruit of my labor, and surely I can’t help but feel so much fulfilled.
By this, I also do not mean the reward of popularity that I earned for myself because of my award, though that too feels even more rewarding. I do not deny that to be one of the top graduates of my batch has made me popular among my batch mates. Many of them know me or at least my name.
By it, I do not also mean the reward of having one’s market value increased tremendously, though that also is rewarding. Most especially nowadays that the corporate world has become more flat, where everyone has an equal fighting chance to compete and to climb up the corporate ladder, a summa cum laude title will at least give one a good competitive edge over others. To graduate with highest honors can be one’s passport to land to a high-paying job.
No, I do not mean any of these when I say that to graduate with the highest Latin honors conferred upon me is truly rewarding.
Having graduated summa cum laude is rewarding because I know I was able to meet the highest standards in my academic life. I was able to do my work well as a student according to the highest standards of academic evaluation, and to have done my job with utmost human perfection.
Excellence for the sake of service
This is important to me not because I love excellence per se. No, I don’t. Personally, I do not believe pursuing excellence merely for its own sake is ever worthwhile. Excellence, unlike truth, is by itself nothing and worth nothing. It is not an end in itself, but only a means for something else. The raison d’etre of excellence is not in itself, but in something outside of itself. But what is this something else for which we must strive to excel? What makes the pursuit for excellence something worthwhile, and so precious that makes it worth pursuing for a lifetime?
The answer should be clear: Service. The quest for excellence becomes worthwhile only if it is pursued for the sake of service. Service, and nothing else, is the only objective of excellence. To be of best service to others, because one is excellent: this is the only authentic reward of excellence.
I’ve already said this before in the talks I gave, but I do not mind repeating this idea again. Excellence assumes the stature of excellence only when it becomes a service for others. Service is the one thing that makes excellence worth pursuing. We strive for excellence because we want to serve others in a best way possible. Unless we are excellent, we can never serve others with utmost perfection.
“Truth was first in us before it was reflected,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the same way, excellence was first in the person before it was reflected in any of his work. The grandeur of Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are simply transcripts of excellence already within Leonardo da Vinci; what they do is simply reflect the excellence already within the man himself. All excellence we impress upon the world is first in ourselves: where no excellence is, no excellence can be called forth. No hollow man, therefore, can render an excellent service, for he does not possess a well of excellence where he can draw forth the water of excellence from. Only a man of excellence can serve his fellowmen with utmost perfection. The quality of what one gives flows from within.
All this helps us understand why we have bad politics. The reason why we have bad politics is because we don’t have excellent politicians. For how can we expect our politicians to excel in politics if they are not excellent to begin with?
It’s the same thing when we speak of science. The reason we are backward in science is that we have backward men of science. That’s why, one time, when someone asked me how to advance science, I said to him without hesitation: We can only advance science if we advance ourselves. We can only make science go forward if we go forward ourselves.
Time and again, I remember that episode in my favorite anime Naruto. One of the ninjas in the village of Konoha, like Naruto, also dreamt of becoming the Hokage, the strongest of all the ninjas and the leader of the village, not because of any desire for power, but because he wanted to protect everybody, the people he loved. He wanted to be the Hokage because as the Hokage he could best protect everybody. “I want to be the Hokage,” he says, “because I want to protect everyone.”
This should also be our reason for pursuing excellence: We have to strive for excellence because if we are excellent then we are most effective, and hence we can serve others and God in the best way possible. Only excellent people can offer excellent service: The quality of what one gives flows from within.Excellence and Love
In the end, I think, what should animate us to excel is not simply service, but love, loving service for others and for God.
Excellence doesn’t simply mean meeting the highest standards in whatever you do, it also means putting utmost love to it. Excellence is not simply doing things with utmost human perfection, it also means doing things with greatest love.
No event in my life drives this point more clearly than the time when I worked for a hospital in Marikina as part of my immersion in my theology class. In that experience, I saw how the sick, especially those who are poor, are treated in a less human way.
This does not mean of course that the doctors don’t attend to the needs of the patients nor does it mean that they were not treated as a patient should be treated. But that’s the point: the delivery of medicine to these patients was merely a professional and technical activity. There was no touch of human love to it.
Someone once said that “the work of health care persons should be carried out not only as a technical activity, but also as a dedication and love of neighbor.” Excellence in health care delivery is therefore not simply a matter of doing it with utmost professional competence, it also is a matter of pouring so much love to it.
In the same way, when we deliver our service to a classmate who needs it most, to a friend who finds something hard, we not only help him in a best human way possible, we also help him in the most loving way possible.
Mother Teresa, in one of her speeches, shared an experience she had with a man whom she picked up from a drain, half eaten by worms and, after being cared for, the man only said to Mother Teresa, "I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as an angel, loved and cared for." Then, after all the worms were removed from his body, all he said, with a big smile, was: "Sister, I am going home to God" - and he died.
In that simple episode, Mother Teresa did not merely extend her professional competence, her service, to the man; she also poured out her love for him. She did not merely do things with highest human perfection possible; she also did them with the greatest love possible. And that is excellence.
Pursue excellence, not for its own sake, for excellence, by itself, is worth nothing, nor for the sake of popularity or increasing your market value, but for the sake of serving those important to you, to God, out of love.
Life’s Center
During one gathering with some young freshman fellows from UP Diliman, where I was the speaker, someone from the audience asked me to give them a few tips on how to excel in the academics. I told him if you want to excel, you have to find a center outside of yourself, a center bigger, higher and larger than yourself.
This was my advice to them, this is my advice to all of you now, especially to the young scholars present here today. Find a center bigger than yourself. This is the essence of living life epically, generously and excellently.
If your life’s center is in yourself, you strive to excel only because you want to glorify yourself. And I tell you, with this mindset, you won’t get any far in this life. But if you put your center to something bigger than yourself and commit your entire being to it, you yourself will become a person larger than life, a person of excellence.
Some time ago, I read a book entitled “Great Men and Women of Asia: Ramon Magsaysay Awardees 1958-1967”. It is a book which chronicles the tales of 15 Ramon Magsaysay laureates. The names of some of them are familiar to us: Mother Teresa, Akira Kurosawa and Dalai Lama. These are the people whose names command power, greatness of spirit, moral courage and service of society. These are the people who are larger than life. And what made them larger than life is precisely the fact that they have stood for something larger than themselves, they have committed their whole life to something beyond themselves.
I do hope that you will soon find your life’s center, as I have found mine. I have put my life’s center in God, and this has changed a lot in me. I’ve tried to do whatever I do, even the most mundane of things, with utmost human perfection, because only a work done perfectly can be made into a real offering to God. I’ve also tried my best to be perfect so I can better respond to the demands of love that God asks from me.
Thank you.
posted by Lawaan Crawler at 10:26 PM
5 Comments:
i should say, that was one of the few long speeches I actually had listened intently to in my whole life.
I remember how my schoolmates reacted when (Nong? Sir?) Varsolo came to the Naruto part, though I can't relate to it myself for I am not fond of animés with VERY long fight scenes. I prefer shorter ones hehe ^^
don't worry Sir ed...I'm sure that teachers with an un-sadistic nature would get a permanent position. And I mean it. hehehe...may evaluation naman sa huli ng bawat quarter eh...*evil grin and chuckle*
i want to see some mambukal pics...^_^
eyyy...oliver...didnt know part ka na sang faculty sang pisay...and im also so glad i came across this blog....i was desperately checking on the net where i could get a directory or list in any way sang batches 1997-2001(sorry, amo lang na batches naabtan ko hehe...) i saw the earlier comments and read the part when u said u were from batch `99...shocked man ko coz batch ko man na hehehe....and finally i saw the name oliver somewhere....pls say hi to the faculty for me..and if the dorm manager is still mam arlene hehe...do take care and keep the updates coming...
ey oliver...i dont trust my memory na but just want to ask if this varsolo sunio is the brother of victor? hehehe...
Hi jaki,
Is this the jaki with a lou and with a peaceful and tranquil ocean for a last name? Nope, this is not Oliver. I heard he's out touring somewhere with a singing group. In Europe nonetheless. Or maybe I just have lousy info. How are you by the way?
yup its me hehe..haha, sala ko gali?ngek...so who are u then?tingala ko man coz the last i heard about oliver, he was with a singing group...sorry for the blunder..im ok, about to graduate sa three-yr course ko here in tokyo..im with sarah pa dyapon, together forever na kami hehe...so back to my question..who r u? hehehe...mail me in jakijl@yahoo.com if ur identity is supposed to remain anonymous...how`s pisay?
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