Discover your greatness: Be a diamond, not a graphite!

‘Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory’ - William Barclay

Graphite and diamond have a very simple chemical composition; they are both pure carbon but physically, they are very different.

When you look at graphite and diamond, it is hard to imagine that they are chemically similar. Graphite is smoky and metallic to earthy-looking while diamond is transparent and brilliant. Diamond is the hardest mineral known to man (10 on the Mohs scale, a scale of hardness of solids); graphite is one of the softest (less than 1 on the Mohs scale).

As a result, diamond is the ultimate abrasive whereas graphite is an excellent lubricant. Diamond is an electrical insulator while graphite is a good conductor of electricity. A Diamond is usually transparent while graphite is opaque.

The reason for the physical difference in both gemstones lies in the way the carbon atoms form bonds with each other in both minerals. The chemical formation of the carbon atoms of a diamond is very firm and hard due to the slow configuration (bonding) of the carbon atoms over a long period of time but graphite has a loose and soft composition because it is arranged quickly and easily. Diamonds can withstand pressure (heat) without falling apart due to its formation process; graphite, however, melts under the smallest heat.

Similarly as humans, with all that we go through in life: if we faithfully endure, it slowly builds us up to withstand the test of time (pressure) as a diamond. But if we abruptly exit the process of bonding (pain, hurt, hardship, disappointment, challenges, hurdles, etc.), we would be just like a graphite falling apart under pressure.

Hence, choose to be a diamond and not a graphite. American Psychologist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

People of value, character, endurance, fortitude, and substance do not just happen, they are made out of the storms of life. People like Liz Murray who rose from abject poverty, hopelessness, and a broken home to conquer her dream of attending one of the world's most prestigious universities, Harvard. Growing up with drug-addict parents, Liz Murray’s education soon suffered.

But after a stint living on the streets as a teen, she turned her life around; resumed her studies and secured a place at one of the world’s elite universities while maintaining a straight-A grade! Narrating her story, Liz went on to talk about her childhood by saying; I was three years old when I first realized that my mother and father shared strange habits.

They would retreat into the kitchen of our New York apartment and spread spoons and other objects across the table while communicating in quick, urgent commands. I was not supposed to bother them, but I watched from the hallway. Water was needed; just a few drops from the tap and so were shoelaces and belts. Then, at the very last minute, they would shut the door, blocking my view entirely.

One evening, when the door was closed on me once again, I did not budge but sat and waited outside. When my mother finally emerged, I raised my arms in the air and said in a singsong voice, ‘Al-l-l do-ne.’ Taken off guard, my mother asked disbelievingly, ‘what did you say, pumpkin?’ ‘Al-l-l do-ne,’ I repeated.

She yelled at my father: ‘Peter, she knows!’ and Daddy laughed while mum stroked my hair. Thrilled to have found my place in their game, I sat outside the kitchen whenever they spread the spoons from then on. Eventually, they left the door open.

Liz’s Mum and Dad were both also products of what is termed in psychology a polluted micro-system (the most immediate context or environment that impacts the development of a person).

Her mother started using drugs at the age of four. Raised by an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother, she had started smoking grass to escape the violence and abuse of her home life. Later, she ran away and between sleeping rough and earning her living through prostitution, she moved on to speed and heroin. Liz’s father, on the other hand, was one of her mother’s drug dealers. They began hanging out together when she was 22 and he was 34.

Her dad was a child of a violent, alcoholic father, but his middle-class mother had tried to secure her only child’s future by holding down two bookkeeping jobs in order to send him to a private school. Midway through a psychology degree, however, he had abandoned his studies for the drug trade.

Liz started school in the summer of 1985 and from the onset; she endeavored to be a good student. But since life was too rough at home and she most times did not get enough sleep, she could not maintain her good grades at school. She often played truant from school since her Mum had become legally blind due to a degenerative eye infection she had since birth.

As well as being blind, she also had a mental illness, between 1986 and 1990; she suffered six schizophrenic bouts, each requiring her to be institutionalized for up to three months.

As the situation at home deteriorated, Liz and her sister Lisa could not go to school anymore, they retreated into their rooms, with Lisa listening to music and Liz reading books all day. Slowly, Liz read through her Dad’s collection of ever-growing supply of true crime, biographies and random trivia library books that were unreturned. Before long, Liz started reading avidly and fast enough to get through one book in a little over a week.

Eventually, her parents went their separate ways, with Liz caught up between staying with her Mum or Dad.

Shortly after she turned 13, Child Welfare took her into a residential center where girls with behavioral problems were ‘evaluated’. Later, it was agreed that she should go stay with her mum and her boyfriend in New York where she was enrolled into a new high school. Soon, she became friends with one pretty Latina girl named Sam.

They became buddies and hung out together most of the time. Liz and Sam started skipping school together with a gang of other truants. Despite living haphazardly, Liz was repulsive to drugs and alcohol. Although her Mum had yielded to drugs and alcohol, she keenly advised Liz not to ever engage in it. Also, the lives of her Mum and Dad and what they have been through was probably the most compelling anti-drug message anyone could have given her.

With her Mum dying of AIDS, Liz was left staying with friends who lived in homeless shelters and on subway transits. One day, Liz was introduced by a friend to a former runaway who now had a steady job and her own apartment.

Liz found motivation in how the former runaway had turned her situation around and, therefore, inquired from her how she attained that success. Liz was directed to an alternative high school programme where she consistently improved her life and education.

Gradually, she gained self-confidence which reflected in her academic achievements; becoming a straight-A student and completing a four-year high school programme in just two years. As a result, she was nominated by the school with other top nine students to visit Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts.

During the visit to Harvard, Liz observed students reading on the open lawns and she became inspired; a deep longing for something she admitted she could not explain. According to her, “the feeling must have shown on my face because Perry leaned over and said, ‘Hey, Liz, it would be a reach, but it’s not impossible… Ever think about applying to Harvard?”

On her return to New York, Liz was motivated by her teachers to apply for a New York Times scholarship worth $12,000 a year with the prerequisite being an essay describing any obstacles that you may have had to overcome in life in order to thrive academically. Recounting the moment, Liz said in her own words, “My eyes widened. It was so ridiculously perfect that I laughed. Taking a blank sheet of paper, I poured everything I had on to the page. My frustrations, my sadness, my grief – the essay wrote itself.”

Three thousand high school students applied for the six scholarships offered by The New York Times. Liz became one of the selected six students; hence, she went to Harvard on a New York Times scholarship and graduated in 2009. Today, Liz is an award-winning motivational speaker and runs workshops designed to help others change their lives for the better. Liz Murray, once homeless with a flicker of hope at the tunnel of life, has now become a diamond, precious and full of value in the eyes of the world, not a graphite.

See, human beings because of our inability to envisage the end of a thing, we tend to lose hope and often give in when we are almost at the verge of a breakthrough or promotion. The challenges, hurdles, pain, and disappointments that come your way do not come to break you but to make you; not to weaken you but to strengthen you; not to disappoint you but to appoint you to greatness!

When all other birds try to seek refuge from storms and hide from its fierceness, eagles fly into it and use the wind of the storm to rise higher to greater heights. They use the pressure of the storm to glide higher. When it is all said and done, I pray you would have used the storms of your life to elevate your dreams and aspirations to greater heights. The following are few tips to help you during such challenging seasons:

HOLD ON - The ability to endure an unpleasant situation to the end is what separates great people from the unseasoned. “To succeed you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you,” says, Tony Dorsett. Hold on to your dreams and aspirations with a bulldog grip in spite of the changing tides of life. If you are able to outlast the current situation, you shall come out as precious diamond, full of value and substance

KNOW IT SHALL PASS- Your attitude and actions to endure hard times become different when you know that whatever you are experiencing is seasonal. Sadly, most people make perpetual decision when they are going through temporal difficulties. Nelson Mandela was able to overcome the awful treatment and segregation from the perpetrator of the apartheid regime with the conviction that, "there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires."

DETERMINE TO OUTLAST THE STORM - Your resolve to dig in your heels for a long haul in challenging times is vital for the discovery of the greatness in you. Nineteenth-century English writer, Charles Caleb Colton maintained that "times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.”

SET YOUR EYE ON THE END - Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel regardless of the pervasive darkness that has engulfed the present, is the hallmark of great minds. American Civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. envisaged glimpses of hope for his fellow Black Americans and their lineage when he declared in his famous "I have a dream" speech that, ".......one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." Choose to see the positives despite the negative surroundings.

STAY CLAM - Often, most people find it difficult to endure to the end; probably because they cannot see the end of their storm and how it is going to bring the best out of them.

Hence, they start spreading their tentacles, looking for quick fix and temporary “bandages” to fix the situation. In her children's novel, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, Julie Andrews Edwards advised that “If you remain calm in the midst of great chaos, it is the surest guarantee that it will eventually subside.”

My dear cherished reader, life in this 21th century is getting increasingly tough and could even be tougher owing to the inability of governments and the political leadership in general across the global to find answers to the pressing needs and challenges facing us in this generation.

But your sure bet to succeed in spite of this phenomenon, is to choose to be diamond, not a graphite - a precious and valuable gemstone not a cheap and fragile one. Always remember, your worth in life is determined by the quality of refining and endurance you have experienced. Discover Your Greatness!