It’s always seemed strange to me that someone would refer to themselves as a “diamond in the rough.” Oh, I get it… They mean they’re just lacking a little polish and a strategic chip or two to make them shine… be worthy. Not much better than a clump of coal really. Nothing a little time and pressure won’t fix.
But I beg to differ. I think most of us are actually more like facetted diamonds. The part most of us ooh and aah about? The side catching all the light? That’s called the table and it represents the life you’re living right now. But it wouldn’t have any brilliance without the 57 other facets underneath it.
Each of those facets represents a significant choice we made, a path we took, or even a life we could have lived had the fates aligned differently… A regret. A what if?
And what’s another word for facet? Cut. It’s the cuts that make us beautiful and yet, most of us spend a good deal of time and energy trying to avoid getting cut (even though it doesn’t really work). Let’s face it, no one gets out of this life unscathed.
These shadows of who we wanted to be and who we might have been are still with us. I once read that the average person will make 773,618 decisions over a lifetime — and will come to regret 143,262 of them. That’s a lot of regrets.
Did you ever notice though, how when you look at a diamond from different angles, sometimes the facets underneath are the ones that blind you with their brilliance? Maybe that’s just the Big Jeweler in the Sky’s way of telling us to shift our perspective.
The Japanese have a tradition of repairing their broking pottery with gold. It’s called Kintsugi. They literally use gold to mend the breaks. They celebrate the cracks and the bowl is more beautiful than before because of them.
I think that’s a tremendous way to view our own imperfections. It’s the chips, the dents, nicks, spots, and scratches that make us who we are. They are our facets. If you let your “flaws” become your beauty marks, your weaknesses will become your strengths.