THE STORY OF ACRES OF DIAMONDS - YOUR SUCCESS IS WITHIN AND AROUND YOU

It is hard to believe that bundles of opportunities surround you especially when you’re facing challenges in the pursuit of your dreams. Sometimes I find it very difficult to believe this, but this is the truth. One of the best known lectures ever delivered on the surface of the earth is “Acres of Diamonds.” this lecture became so popular that the author, Russell cornwell, delivered it about five thousand times before different audiences in his lifetime. 
It is a story of Ali Hafed who lived in a cottage on the river bank, from which he could get a grand view of the beautiful country stretching away to the sea. He had a wife and children, an extensive farm, fields of grain, gardens of flowers, orchards of fruit, and miles of forest. He had plenty of money and everything that his heart could wish. He was contented and happy.


One evening a priest of Buddha visited him, and, sitting before the fire, explained to him how the world was made, and how the first beams of sunlight condensed on the earth’s surface into diamonds. The old priest told him that a drop of sunlight the size of his thumb was worth more than large mines of copper, silver, or gold; that with one of them he could buy many farms like his; that with a handful he could buy a province, and with amine of diamonds he could purchase a kingdom. Ali Hafed listened, and was no longer a rich man. He had been touched with discontent, and with all wealth vanishes.

Early the next morning he woke the priest who has been the cause of his unhappiness, and anxiously asked him where he could find a mine of diamonds. “What do you want of diamonds? Asked the astonished priest.  “I want to be rich and place my children on thrones.” “All you have to do is to go and search until you find them, said the priest. “But where shall I go? Asked the poor farmer. “Go anywhere, north, south, east, or west.” “How shall I know when I have found the place? “When you find a river running over white sands between high mountain ranges, in those white sands you will find diamonds, “answered the priest.

The discontented man sold the farm for what he could get, left his family with a neighbor, took the money he had at interest, and went to search for the coveted treasure. Over the mountains of Arabia, through Palestine and Egypt, he wandered for years, but found no diamonds. When his money was all gone and starvation stared him in the face, ashamed of his folly and of his rags, poor Ali Hafed threw himself into the tide and was drowned. The man who bought his farm was a contented man, who made the most of his surroundings, and did not believe in going away from home to hunt for diamonds or success. While his camel was drinking in the garden one day, he noticed a flash of light from the white sands of the brook. He picked up a pebble, and pleased with its brilliant hues took it into the house, put it on the shelf near the fireplace, and forgot all about it.

The old priest of Buddha who had filled Ali Haffed with the fatal discontent called one day upon the new owner of the farm. He had no sooner entered the room than his eye caught that flash of light from the stone. “Here’s a diamond! Here’s a diamond!” the old priest shouted in great excitement. “Has Ali Hafed returned? Said the priest. No, said the farmer, nor is that a diamond. That is but a stone. They went into the garden and stirred up the white sand with their fingers, and behold, other diamonds more beautiful than the first gleamed out of it. So the famous diamond beds of Golconda were discovered. Had Ali Hafed been content to remain at home, had he dug in his own garden, instead of going abroad in search for wealth, and reaping poverty, hardships, starvation, and death, he would have been one of the richest men in the world, for the entire farm abouned in the richest of gems.

Michael Angelo found a piece of discarded carrara marble among waste rubbish besides a street in Florence, which some unskillful workman had cut, hacked, spoiled and thrown away. No doubt, many artists has noticed the fine quality of the marbel, and regretted that it should have been spoiled. But Michael Angelo still saw an angel in the ruin, and with his chisel and mallet he called out from it one of the fines pieces of statuary in Italy, the young David. If all you can see around you now are problems and lacks, can you bring out the beauty of opportunities in your place by simply going to work on and with them?

Always learn to start from where you are
The eyes that look are many but the ones that see are very few. Opportunity, says Henry Ford, comes to every man dressed in the overall called WORK. Your present location right now is a good place to start from. You are never disadvantaged by your present location. The great people you are seeing today started small. Apple Company started from Job’s garage. When Bill Gate started his company – Microsoft, he a lot of people mock him. Never believe that your dream can only be actualized in a big city, in a large digitalized office of an executive; and that your dream is only possible when you have millions in your account as seed fund. All you need now is what you have; in fact, you don’t need any other place until you’ve overgrown it. Don’t wait for a perfect time, it doesn’t exist.

If a seed is planted in the soil it doesn’t say “I’m a big Iroko tree, the ground is too small for me.” By the process of growth, the great Iroko starts humbly, staying in the ground for a period of time until it outgrows the ground and sprouts out on the surface. While underneath the gound people trample on it, neglect its potential for greatness and even forget about its existence for years. Remember that Chinese bamboo stays seven years underground but in just seven weeks it grows to ten thousand feet tall. It is called humble beginnings. Yes, people will ridicule, mock and neglect you just like Bill Gates at your beginning stage but you will eventually grow to become all that you have envisioned just this same way Bill Gate outgrown its beginning stage and became the world’s richest man in seven consecutive times.

Finally fellow #Potential – worldchangers, if you are in school and all that you have around are your fellow students; that is a good place to start from. If all you have now is your one-room apartment or a corner in your university dormitory; that is a wonderful place to start from. If all you have around you now are your families and friends, they are good people to start with. As soon as you start and continue to grow, you will surely overgrow and become larger than your present environment as far as the law of growth is working.