Excellence Is Rented, Not Owned: The Rent Is Due Every Day
By Derek Neighbors on October 23, 2025
My grandmother’s cast iron skillet was older than I am.
Sixty-plus years of daily use. Cooked thousands of meals. Never wore out.
Every single time she used it, and I mean every single time she’d follow the same ritual: Clean it while still hot. Thin layer of oil. Heat until it smokes.
As a kid, I thought she was being excessive. Old-fashioned. Overly precious about a cooking tool that “should just work.”
Then I bought my own cookware. $200 for a “lifetime warranty” non-stick pan. Professional grade. Dishwasher safe. No maintenance required.
It flaked apart in 18 months.
That’s when the pattern revealed itself.
Grandma’s pan was fragile, leave it wet overnight and it would rust. No protective coating. No “set it and forget it” convenience.
But that daily ritual? That thin layer of oil, applied without fail, every single time?
Made it indestructible.
My pan was “perfect”, coated, protected, designed to need no care.
But neglect killed it fast.
Fragility plus devotion outlasts perfection plus neglect.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth that pattern reveals about excellence:
You don’t achieve it. You rent it.
And the rent? It’s due every single day.
The Arrival Fantasy
We’re addicted to the arrival moment.
The certification. The promotion. The milestone. The transformation.
We invest massive energy to “get there,” believing that once we arrive, we can finally relax.
We celebrate the achievement, update our LinkedIn profile, and assume excellence is now our baseline.
Then we act surprised six months later when performance has degraded.
The ancient Greeks knew something we’ve forgotten: arete (excellence) isn’t a state you achieve, it’s a practice you maintain.
They didn’t have a word for “achieving” excellence. They had a word for pursuing it.
Because they understood what we refuse to accept:
Excellence doesn’t compound. It decays.
You can’t bank it. You can’t stockpile it. You can’t live off yesterday’s effort any more than you can be nourished by yesterday’s meal.
The rent is due every single day.
And here’s where it gets uncomfortable: We’re willing to work hard to “get there,” but unwilling to work daily to “stay there.”
We want excellence to be a trophy we win once.
It’s actually a gym membership we pay forever.
What We Actually Do
Train hard for a race. Finish strong. Stop training.
Three months later, a 5K feels impossible and we can’t understand why.
Chase someone intensely. Win their commitment. Take them for granted.
Two years in, the relationship feels distant and we blame them for changing.
Grind to learn a language. Reach conversational fluency. Stop practicing.
Try to speak it a year later and can’t remember basic vocabulary. Frustrating as hell.
The behavior is always the same: Massive effort to reach a goal, then we coast.
We’re not avoiding maintenance. We’re avoiding the reality that excellence is never “done.”
The ancient Greeks had arete (excellence) and askesis (training). You can’t have one without the other.
Arete without askesis is like fire without fuel. It burns bright briefly, then dies.
I watch software engineers spend 40 hours researching task management apps to avoid spending 10 minutes a day using one.
People searching endlessly for the “perfect” system that will finally make them organized.
The app. The framework. The methodology.
The one that requires no maintenance, no adjustment, no daily effort.
They’ll spend 40 hours researching systems to avoid spending 10 minutes a day maintaining one.
Leaders do this. Looking for the framework that will “solve” team dysfunction once and for all.
Married people do it. Believing love should “just work” without daily effort, daily attention, daily renewal.
Here’s what we’re really looking for: An excuse to stop trying.
The Stoics practiced prosoche, the discipline of attention. Not attention once. Daily attention.
Marcus Aurelius didn’t write Meditations as a one-time exercise. He wrote it daily, reminding himself of the same truths over and over.
Why? Because wisdom without daily practice is just intellectual entertainment.
The “perfect” thing that needs no care is always the first thing to break.
Watch the VP who stopped reading anything published after 2015.
They’ve reached senior level in their career.
They stop learning new skills. Stop reading in their field. Stop pushing their edges.
They shift from growth mode to “maintenance mode.”
Which sounds reasonable until you realize: There’s no such thing as maintenance mode.
Same thing happens after someone gets in shape.
They celebrate hitting their goal weight or running their target distance.
Then they shift to “maintenance mode.”
Three months later they’ve lost most of their progress and can’t figure out why.
The Greeks understood this. They talked about phthora (decay) and genesis (growth).
There’s no neutral state. You’re either growing or decaying.
“Maintenance” is just a comfortable word for controlled decay.
And here’s the one that hits closest to home:
“I’ve earned credibility in this field. I can coast now.”
“I was fit in college, so I’m basically healthy.”
“I learned this skill 10 years ago, so I’m still good.”
I did this with writing. Published for years, then coasted on “being a writer” while barely writing. Took six months before I noticed my sentences had gone soft. A year before I admitted I wasn’t a writer anymore, just someone who used to write.
We treat excellence like a bank account. Make deposits early, make withdrawals later.
Except the account balance was always zero.
Past excellence is just a story. Present excellence is the only thing that matters.
The Greeks distinguished between chronos (chronological time) and kairos (the right moment).
Excellence isn’t measured by how long ago you achieved something. It’s about whether you’re excellent right now.
Your reputation from 2015 doesn’t make you excellent in 2025.
Your college fitness doesn’t make you healthy today.
Your decade-old skill doesn’t make you valuable now.
You can’t live off yesterday’s effort any more than you can be nourished by yesterday’s meal.
The Reality
You can’t “bank” miles. Running 50 miles on Saturday doesn’t mean you can skip Monday.
Miss three days? You’re not maintaining. You’re declining.
The Greeks called this enkrateia, self-mastery through consistent practice.
Here’s the uncomfortable part: Daily renewal demands time, energy, and giving up the fantasy that you can stop trying.
But neglect costs more.
Week one, nothing visible. You feel fine.
Month one, subtle decline you rationalize away.
Month three, obvious regression you can’t deny.
Year one, starting over from scratch. Or worse.
The Greeks understood phthora (decay) doesn’t announce itself. It’s silent. Gradual. Inevitable.
By the time you notice, you’re already months into it.
The Uncomfortable Truth
You’re never done.
That promotion? Rent.
That fitness level? Rent.
That relationship? Rent.
That skill? Rent.
The rent is due every single day.
Most people can’t accept this. They want achievement—the moment when they “arrive” and can finally relax.
The Greeks had a word for that fantasy: kenodoxia (empty glory).
Real excellence? Arete. The daily pursuit of your highest potential.
Not the destination. The practice.
The Choice
Grandma’s cast iron pan lasted 60+ years because she paid rent every single day.
My “lifetime warranty” pan died in 18 months because I believed excellence could be purchased once.
The difference? She treated maintenance as non-negotiable. I treated it as optional.
She found peace in the ritual. I resented the requirement.
You’re either building or decaying. Growing or dying. Paying rent or facing eviction.
There’s no maintenance mode. There’s only daily renewal or slow decline.
This is where most people quit. They hear “daily renewal” and feel exhausted. They want excellence to be a one-time achievement.
But the daily practice isn’t the burden. The burden is living with the consequences of neglect. The burden is watching your capabilities decline. The burden is facing a challenge and discovering your skills have atrophied.
Daily renewal isn’t the hard part. Regret is.
Every morning you wake up, the rent is due again.
You can resent this reality. Or you can embrace it and find freedom in the practice.
Choose which one you’re willing to live with.
Final Thoughts
Excellence isn’t owned. It’s rented. The rent is due every day.
Most people spend their lives trying to escape this reality. Looking for the system, the achievement, the moment when they can finally stop trying.
But the practice of daily renewal isn’t just about excellence in work. It’s about eudaimonia, human flourishing through consistent alignment with who you’re becoming.
Grandma understood this with her cast iron pan. Not because she was wise or philosophical. Because she accepted reality.
Fragile things with daily care outlast “perfect” things with neglect.
Your skills. Your relationships. Your excellence. All fragile. All requiring daily renewal.
This isn’t a problem to solve. It’s reality to accept.
And once you accept it? You find freedom in the practice.
What area of your life are you pretending is in “maintenance mode”?
What would daily rent actually look like for it?
Name it. Right now. Because you already know the answer.
The rent is due every day. Are you paying it?
MasteryLab provides the framework and community for people who understand that greatness is rented daily, and who are committed to paying the rent. Join us in the pursuit of arete.
