“Time and Pressure”
Do you know how a diamond is made? Pure carbon (like you find in coal) is put under tremendous pressure below the earth’s surface. This immense pressure continues for millions of years. The pressure eventually hardens the carbon into diamond. The lesson: the difference between your regular lump of coal and a diamond is only time and pressure.
Time and Pressure is how the earth makes precious stones, how you succeed on the court, and it is how people become the legacy they will leave behind.
To my seniors:
6 years seems far too short a time for us to have worked, accomplished, failed, learned, and succeeded quite so much.
I have spent more time with you then my wife would like, at times more than you have wanted, and more time then is healthy on my concern for each of you. Some demanded more concern than others, but all in many different ways. This concern I possessed was always with an eye on end product. The end of our time together does not mean though that you are an end product.
I had finite time to apply finite pressure. The edges I’ve worn off and mold I’ve pressed you towards are not the goal. You had to simply learn that to improve yourself you must push yourself from where you were, through discomfort, to where and who you want to be. I’ve seen all of you change, whether I think that change is good, bad, or other is of no consequence. What matters is that under time and pressure you changed.
As young men journeying into the world you have inherited the gifts of finite time and control over how much pressure you place on yourself to increase your self worth. Every moment you have is time to change, to grow to become whoever the world will remember.
While touring a coal mine in Cape Breton I learned that there are many grades of coal. Each is unique and serves a unique purpose; men often argue their value or merit. The difference between the lowest grade of coal and the most perfect diamond is not whether one is better or worse. Their value is determined by how rare and valuable others find them. The difference was simply: time and pressure.
