I’m about to publish the 2nd Annual Dean’s List. Some people ask what exactly is it and what’s the importance. I guess I never really did fully explain the full meaning behind it. Here is my attempt;
Back in college, if you made The Dean’s List, then it means you achieved a certain level of academic excellence.
As defined in the Wikipedia, Excellence is the state or quality of excelling. It is superiority, or the state of being good to a high degree. I realized that every year, there will be people who will have excelled in adding value to my life. So in 2007, I developed the first list of people who I thought had added tremendous value for the year of 2006.
I believe in having the attitude of gratitude. With so many things that often go wrong in our lives, it helps to be thankful of the good things in our lives. By developing a focus on the positive aspects of our life, we develop an anchor of sorts that allows us to continue to make positive strides and attract what we truly want. Nothing was ever accomplished with a state of negativity.
It turns out that the good things that came into my life was always because of people. So the most important things in our lives aren’t things at all. They are people.
The year 2007 has just passed and I find that I’ve developed relationships with various people who have added value to my life for this year. Without them, I could not have achieved or moved along in my life’s journey. Some of them are repeats of 2007’s list. And some of them are new to the list.
Somehow and someway, they managed to excel and enhance the quality of my own life. Some people do the holiday card thing. Others send cookies. As for me? I publish an annual list of people who added beauty to the life that I try to live.
And for these people, I thank them with my heart and my soul.
If you ever truly want to know the impact that such a list has had on me since I’ve been doing it, I would highly advice trying something similar. You will be pleasantly surprised.