Diamond in the Rough

 “Sometimes when things are falling apart, they might just be falling into place” – J Lynn

A desperate man came to a wise old man near a street, and started crying at his feet. "What's wrong?" the old man asked kindly. The man held up a tattered bag and moaned, "All that I own in this whole wide world barely fills this miserable, wretched sack. I had so much before and all is lost. All is lost. I have nothing." The man looked up at the sky and continued wailing.

The wise man smiled, snatched the bag from the tearful man and in a blink of an eye, made a run down the road, with it.

The man stared in surprise and started running after the wise man, who was too fast for him. After a few blocks, the man got tired and now even more miserable than before, sat on his knees and burst into tears. The wise man saw this from a corner, and silently walked to the man and placed the bag next to him and left quietly.

When the man saw his bag placed on the pavement next to him, he laughed with joy, and shouted, "My sack! I thought I'd lost you! I'm so glad I found you!"

The wise man saw this scene from nearby and smiled to himself. "In life, you always have something to lose". 

There is always something to lose. Even when you are falling apart.

Hitting rock bottom. The time in life where your life seems to be crumbling away at the seams, and all you can do is watch helplessly. The world crushes your spirit with its weight and you merely just exist. It almost seems like a never-ending state, and like groundhog’s day, life keeps churning the same story to you, over and over again, with no light of hope. It is one of the ultimate testing experiences, after which one comes out renewed or bruised for life.

I am no stranger to this. In fact, I have seen it happen so many times to me, that it almost became a welcome guest. Welcome guest, you ask? All I mean is this. When you see so much suffering and pain and suddenly happiness does shower on you, one may be relieved for a while, but deep inside you are actually waiting for the next smack. And when it does arrive, you are not taken by surprise. In my life, this welcome guest has come uninvited, played unprecedented havoc and stayed overtime again and again and again.

From finances, to relationships, to your meaning in life and even self-worth, this welcome guest can overturn and destroy anything in its path. While you just watch blankly on the side lines. Waiting for it to leave, so you can make some sense of what happened.

Growing up, we never really had much. I remember I had two small shelves in the corner of my room, shared with my brother, that accommodated pretty much all I had. Back then, having anything in life was special, even when it came to food. Like having dishes cooked with meat was something like a celebration, that I could count those days on my fingers and somehow, each time I had more fingers than days of meat (thankfully I was never a fan of meat). I do remember that a burger could be split in a few parts and getting a bite here and there was satisfying. I also remember going to school in shoes that were digging into my toes, (as I had outgrown them) and buying new ones at will was not an option. Yes, life was not easy. But my mother taught me the deep learning behind the circumstances.

With a twinkle in her eye, she would say, “The best thing about having less, is to know that you have enough”. Those words made no sense to me when I was young, but today it is the rock foundation that has made me who I am. (Think about this one, and maybe share your views in the comments below)

I cannot count the number of times life threw a curve ball at me and shattered my hopes and dreams into a million shards. It watched as I put the broken pieces of whatever was left inside me, only to watch helplessly as it swung in once again and broke it into a million more. If you think you are the only one going through this, then my friend, you have a companion in me.

But this is the thing. On one such occasion, I was angry and feeling victimized asked my mother sarcastically, “Don't you think life has a weird sense of humor?”. She thought for a bit and replied, “No, life has no humor. Just high standards”. Another gem was thrown at me, which took some while to take in.

It is only the fact that I got beaten down so many times, that I finally realized what the whole game was really about. Life had high standards for me. And I could either accept or keep resisting the change. 

With time, I realized that I could either worry my life away like the common, or try and be patient and see what lesson is unfolding for me. I could either keep complaining or try to embrace the new. In a strange way, I gradually started finding a mutual peace with the situation and though fear of the unknown was there, I was more interested to know what life was trying to teach me.

This is when I understood the bigger picture. It is these very times where you are silently falling apart, that you are given the opportunity to recreate your reality. To the extent of what you can be, and not what you are.

In reality, it is also human to think, that life has an agenda against you and you are it’s pawn in the crisis of existence. Looking beyond this darkness, is the real deal. But can we?

Let me switch gears here.

Have you heard of the chaos theory? In simple terms, it means that there are no random acts of chaos and everything is part of complex patterns, interwoven in a state of order.

And this gets stranger. It is such order in motion, that through complex web of cause and effect, that a flap of the wings of a butterfly in Philippines, could cause a tornado in Mexico! Basically, chaos and disorder is order in existence!

The famous psychologist Carl Jung validated this as well when he said, “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order”.  

What I am trying to say is that when the world is crumbling around you, it is actually being rebuilt for the better. It is simply, a system of another order being created. Just for you.

The splendid thing about falling apart silently, is that you can start over as many times as you like. Life has high standards for you. Changing your mindset can deter the biggest obstacle in its path.

And how do you let life work for you, instead of against you? Pulling yourself together when everything seems to be falling apart is one of the most difficult things to do in life. But not impossible.

·       The End is Your New Beginning

 In the midst of darkness, there always lies the beam of hope. Things fall apart because the foundations were weak in the first place. You may have outgrown the workplace, relationship, situation at hand, and that is fine. The magic of resilience and “bouncing back” is an integral strength we are born with. #Life unlocks this hidden power and courage floods in where fear once lay. World renowned Boxer Muhammad Ali once said, “Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even”. This is not the end of your story, but merely the end of a chapter in your book of life. The new chapter is still unwritten. Use that last ounce of strength to rise from the ashes. This too shall pass.

·       Let Go to Let In

To bring in the new, you must let go of the old. Every mishap brings gifts of wisdom and learning. But to unlock these gifts, you must get away from self-sabotaging thoughts. It is only then, when you can sense your soul holds no fear any more, but a still presence. A kind of cleansed awareness of the present. When faced with mishaps, there are usually two kinds of people. Here is that fork in the road where you need to choose if you want to be a “sticker or a bouncer”. A sticker will get overwhelmed and sink further down to familiarity grounds of the pain, and keep sticking to rock bottom. But a bouncer is one who will use the learnings and make a choice to springboard back into the unknown.

This kind of attitude understands that with all the pain being given to them, they are being given the gifts of opportunities. But first you must step out of the comfort zone of familiarity. Your strength does not lie in denying destruction around you but in the resurgence from it. You must let go and be open to the new. A tough choice but one that holds endless rewards.

·        Acceptance is Freedom. Ask the Man in the Mirror.

They say, No Pain No Gain. I couldn't agree more. When all is falling apart, the most painful moment is when you look in the mirror and see reality. When the clouds of imagination blow away and you see yourself at your most vulnerable point. This is where you come face to face with your deepest fears and are living the nightmare you want to so badly wake up from. But this is the tipping point my friends. You are still alive and kicking despite the circumstances. It’s time to face your fears and the good news is, that you already have the strength to pass this storm. Make your will stronger than your pain and your determination greater than your fears. Accept your struggles and understand that this time is only a part of your journey in the broad spectrum of your life.

·       Why Me? …. Why Not you?

When calamities befall us, and we are falling into spirals of anxiety and fear, we often have those lonely victimized moments of asking, “why me?”. A strange logical reasoning might be that we are being punished for our past mistakes. But remember like I said previously about life having high standards for you? This is it. It is only preparing you for great things to come. Everyone receives their unique share of life experiences and gets a chance to write their life story again and again.

In truth, right now nothing will make sense but once you are past this and look back and connect the dots, you will see how life helped you build your resolve, courage, and ignited your understanding of who you are. Adversity makes you wiser and stronger and gives gentle nudges to present the real you, to the world. You are special and been chosen to withstand this time, all I can say is, “Why not you?”. A few years from now, when the dark storm has gone by, and the braver and wiser you looks back, the truth may make more sense and possibly you will be grateful for this time. Even see it as a blessing.

·       There is No Forever. Everything passes by

When things fall apart, it is a kind of test of grit but also a blessed healing. The greatness within will emerge and your spiritual breakthrough will happen, but usually one cannot see this while in the storm. Once the dust settles, you will get a clearer picture. The bravest of individuals we know had all kinds of fears within. They just saw beyond it. To make a reasoning of your current situation, means to paralyze your own growth. Stop trying to think of an end to your situation. Everything is temporary and like good times teach us about ourselves, so do the bad times. It helps chisel our personality as life matures us.

When life is falling apart, it is only being rebuilt for the better. One of my favorite poems ‘Once Upon a Time’ by Erin Hanson, is a reminder about how essential it is to know that you can be the author of your own book of life.

What if I read you a story,

Starting, “Once Upon A Time”,

And you realized it was your life,

Spelt out in every line,

Would you hear my voice with wonder,

As it brushed across every word,

And pay my hands had strength to hold,

The truth about your world,

Would your view on life be different,

And would it shock you most to find,

That the things you thought defined you,

Could be summed up in just two lines,

And all the ones you took for granted,

The ins and outs of every day,

Play a bigger part in who you are,

Then you’d ever dared to say,

Would you wonder at the pages left,

And all the places that they’ll lead,

Then vow to make each moment,

One that you’d be proud to read,

Because there is a story to your life,

But it’s you that holds the pen,

And I hope you fill the pages right,

Before you reach the end.

Do you know how diamonds are formed? They reside deep in the Earth’s mantle and with enormous pressure applied to them for 1 to 3 billion years, after which they are delivered to the earth’s surface through volcanic eruptions that spew them out. Think about this. Almost 725,000 pounds per square inch of pressure is applied to the carbon! In other words, the most precious gem was once just a lump of coal. Only pressure made it a jewel.

When feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders, remember that if the weight of mountains can make a lump of carbon into the most prized gem, your pain will become your redemption from the old. You will rise out of this and your courage and fortitude will light the way. Be patient. You are going to be okay. Maybe not today, but sometime soon, this time will fade away. You may feel wounded now but you are not broken. You will be healed to become the more compassionate, patient and wiser You.

Tough times are blessings in disguise. Keep your head high and your feet on the ground. And remember that anything that frustrates you might be teaching you patience. Anyone who abandons you might be teaching you how to stand on your own feet. Something what makes you angry might be teaching you forgiveness. Anything you hate might be teaching you unconditional love. Anything you fear, might be teaching you courage and faith to overcome it. Anything you cannot control might be teaching you to let go.

Life brings lessons that are not easy to learn, but changes you for the better. Till you are no more like the ordinary lump of coal but a Diamond in the Rough.