USWP MFG

The oyster does not learn to make pearls by attending pearl-building seminars with other oysters.

The oyster does not even make the pearl. The grit, pain, suffering and irritation causes the pearl to form and the oyster does everything it can to get rid of it.

If the oyster knew what it was making; would it hold onto the grit for longer?

We all have things in our lives which annoy us. Those pieces of grit that are our own irritations.

If you have something, (or even someone) who irritates you; what can that thing do to help you create a pearl?

If work stresses you out and you are still irritated at bedtime, take a drawing class. Learn to paint. Play the guitar or sing. Before you say "But I don't know how to do any of those things!" Imagine that might be what the lessons are for :-) You already have the thing to motivate you, you just need somewhere to put all that energy.

Yes... art, music and writing will take months to learn. Years to master. But in a week, you can start taking that irritation and turning it into your pearl.

At first your pearl will be lumpy and ugly, but soon your irritant will have all of its previously sharp, unignorable edges, smoothed down.

After you add more layers of protection via your musical instrument or your art, you may begin to see that the thing that used to bring you to tears, now has begun to fulfill dreams you never knew you had.

Once you see your sketches, paintings or hear your music, the hardest part awaits. But in this case it is okay to never go beyond treating yourself with your art. You never have to show anyone. Your pearl. It is yours. Both from you and for you.

You might even learn to cherish some of those bad times because without them you would never have rolled out your pearls.

Now you wonder 'Would I have ever become who I am without all that irritation to spur me on? Would I have been better off without all my grit, irritation, struggle and difficulties?'

I think... no.

Would you want to have spent your life coddled, swaddled and pampered? You would certainly have grown up to be a little, one-dimensional sliver of who you are. A manicured princess or a foppish prince with less depth than our oyster.

Would you enjoy or eagerly anticipate spending an evening with someone who had never struggled or suffered or gone without? How interesting is that person? What stories do they have to tell? What lessons have they learned?

If you are miserable and suffering; join the club. Everyone interesting IS! But to become interesting you need to turn that suffering into motivation to make a difference. Them *make* that difference count for something.

Don't let your suffering drag you down. That is what happens to one dimensional, uninteresting people. No. That path is not for you. You can do better.

Be the oyster. Not the princess.

At least oysters make pearls.