It has become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between a naturally and a humanly created diamond these days. Both can be breathtakingly beautiful. Both can sparkle and shine and dazzle and both can even have value. The difference between the two is the story of their creation. The humanly created diamond is created for the sole purpose of profiteering. Their creators may sell their product for all manner of uses, but the goal is always to make money. The naturally created diamond also brings profit to the people who mine it but the purpose of its creation is … well … there was no purpose. It was just created. Just because. It is created under extreme conditions of heat and pressure and lives silently there under the earth’s crust till the planet has a stress attack and vomits the diamond out of its place and makes it accessible for humans to mine. But its purpose is for nothing else than to just be a diamond. Its value is intrinsic. In the raw or refined, it holds value.

People are like diamonds too. Some are naturally who they are, and some are created by their goals, their circumstances, their aspirations, their failures and by attitudes and requirements and demands of those they want to impress … and sadly, often lose themselves in their making (or maybe, in their unmaking).

You hold value just because you are who you are. The pressures and the heat we have lived through have made us. The only one’s approval you need is yours. Take time to see the value in who you are … and then if you need polishing, go out and do it, but never sell your value for becoming the construct of someone else. Once you lose yourself, it is hard to come back.