Feature: A Ray of Sunshine – Develop the Pearl Within You!

By Timothy A. Edward

We all love and adore pearls. We either wear them around our necks or wrists and display them with pride. Pearls are expensive and rare.  Yet do you know they are born under enormous pressure and irritation? When oysters go to the bottom of the seabed in search of food, sometimes, a speck of sea sand can get into their shell.  This starts the irritation and then the same composition which causes the growth of the shell, starts to form around that speck of sand and this is how great pearls are born. In the same manner, life’s irritations and challenges can be transformed into valuable experiences, much like how a pearl is formed from a grain of sand inside an oyster.

Irritations into Pearls

In life, irritations, difficult situations and people will cross our path. But our response will determine the outcome. If we take them as situations and persons from whom we can gain a lesson, then, time and context, will change those irritations into pearls of great value that would adorn our lives and turn the situation around for our benefit. Every time our feelings and emotions get hurt, and we get tired due to the fiery furnace, we need to maintain a positive attitude. Sometimes, maintaining a positive attitude is the most difficult journey we can undertake. Someone said the most difficult journey we will take is the 16-inch journey that happens between our brain and the heart.

Transforming Challenges into Strengths

Take the lives of great leaders and influencers who have done great service for humanity.  If we examine their lives, we will see scores of examples of how they turned irritating, long-suffering circumstances into life-giving stories of great pearls. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, just to mention a few.  The list is endless. Like oysters turning irritations into beautiful pearls, all these giants of history transformed their adversities into strengths.

Eagle turned Dove

This week, I took a DiSC behaviour test, which was facilitated professionally and fabulously with all the natural fun and thrill that usually accompanies such an activity. As we went through the different steps of this behavioural test with great enthusiasm, I thought I had a Dove personality and voted myself a dove.  However, when I took the test, it came out I had a strong Eagle personality. When I shared this apparent contradiction with the lead facilitator, he said with a big smile on his face, that life had refined and polished my innate eagle personality into a dove. We had a good laugh, but the fact remains, this is exactly what life, education, experiences, work, family and friends do for all of us. They refine our personalities, and like sandpaper, they take off all the rough and sharp edges in our personality, so although we might have the drive, tenacity and flight of an eagle, when we interact and deal with people we tend to love, cherish, embrace and motivate them like doves.  

Pearl of a Personality

Are there issues in your life that have been a source of great irritation lately? Surround those irritations with positive thoughts, energy and love.  Fight off the negative feelings, keep a good attitude when facing those trying situations, and develop the long-suffering trait and do not allow the fuse to go off in your mind. We get the pearl of a personality when we do not grow weary of doing good in spite of irritations and uncomfortable circumstances.

When we maintain a happy, positive outlook in spite of our pressured circumstances, that is when we start to develop the pearl within us.  With time, you will grow and develop a string of valuable pearls to share with others and edify and uplift them during their times of trial.

Later, when we look back, the irritations that we feel and face today will be nothing compared to the value, glittering and beauty of the pearls that will adorn our lives. Embrace positivity, long-suffering and joy, and ultimately develop a “pearl of great price”.