When we are growing up, we’re told a lot of “helpful” lies. Like how Michael Jordan was cut from his highschool basketball team, or how Einstein failed math. Except Michael Jordan was never actually cut from his team and Einstein had mastered college calculus before starting highschool, so neither of them actually failed anything. While the image of our favorite sports stars and certified geniuses struggling the same way we do is certainly appealing, it’s just not true. We’re told these white lies as a method of inspiration, to support the comforting notion that if you try hard enough, no matter how many times you fail, you can be anything. However, ultimately, there are some levels of achievement that are just not possible when you're not born with a particular set of traits. If you aren’t over 6 feet, you're probably never going to have a career as a basketball player. And unless your IQ magically jumps to 160, it’s safe to say you're not going to make any significant contributions to the study of theoretical physics. But why should that be a bad thing?
In The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, the protagonist Nora describes this phenomenon like this:
“While coal and diamonds are both carbon, coal is too impure to be able, under whatever pressure, to become a diamond. According to science, you start off as coal and you end up as coal. Maybe that was the real life lesson” (Haig 22).
Even though we've been taught our whole lives that being a diamond is better, like being a genius or NBA superstar, coal is just as, if not more, important. Sure, diamonds look pretty and cost a lot of money, but coal is a source of fuel for billions. It helps generate the electricity we use everyday to be able to watch sports and research quantum mechanics, among other things. Maybe instead of constantly striving for some greater level of success, our lives could be more meaningful if we accepted that we were too imperfect to ever be a diamond, and embraced ourselves anyway.
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