Last week my family attended a classical music concert together – not a typical Saturday for the Murrays. Several pieces were memorable; one is still impacting me.

The conductor gently raised his hands and a young lady with blonde hair stepped down from the second row of risers. As she approached the microphone stand beside the conductor, music began to play. Standing with impeccable poise, her voice filled the room as she sang “I shall not live. I shall not live… in vain.” She returned to her place in the choir of peers, who joined together to sing a commitment to live a life of purpose.

Music is a gift. It often reaches hard to find places inside me. I’m not sure how it works. Sometimes it’s the lyrics; sometimes it’s the melody; sometimes, it’s the complexity of instruments working together to create a perfect harmony; THIS TIME it was the performers. For reasons still not clear to me, I literally fought tears as I considered how much work each “team member” put into their performance AND how the finished product communicated their efforts by its sheer excellence.

No matter how much you love what you do, commitment to achieve excellence requires faith and sacrifice. Sometimes, we get to see the direct benefit of our hard work. Sometimes, it takes years to see the rewards. It is way too easy to get distracted from disciplined effort when long-term goals seem far away. Whatever is urgent often clouds the important and interrupts momentum toward excellence.

The message that I “heard” listening to a team of very dedicated musicians is difficult to live, but it was very clear to me. Excellence doesn’t come easy, but it’s almost always worth the cost.