What a beautiful concept!!

Thanks : )
YG

I have just read this blog and agree entirely with what has been written.

In our experiences, we can turn into a Pearl or get washed away ..... the way you have written this is very nice and very positive.

I wish more people would read it and turn into Pearls too.

Life is about opposites. Thus, conformity would mean nothing if there wasn't any non-conformity. So, people with AS (others too) provide society with this needed contrast.

That said, I think we each struggle with this issue. When I was far younger, what bothered me is that I was an outcast even amongst the other outcasts! In time, however, I decided that being alone wasn't such a bad thing. While my contemporaries were constantly busy worrying how to fit in with one clique or another, I was liberated from this type of anxiety because I knew I couldn't fit in, so there was no need to spend any time or energy on it!!

This article is absolutely wonderful!! I agree whole heartedly with your point of view. When I look back on situations that I once loathed and dreamed of avoiding, I do find that it was life's (or a higher powers way) of challenging me and out of it I developed wonderful skills. In the movie Evan Almighty, Morgan Freeman was talking to Evan's wife while she was depressed on her husband's obsession with building an arc, Morgan said (and I'm paraphrasing) "When people pray for patience, does God suddenly give you patience? Or does he put you in situations that require patience so that you may develop that skill?" That was an Aha moment for me and now that's how I look at life and I think this article beautifully describes this concept. The things in life that are God's truest gifts require hard work to be appreciated...Love it!! When God gives you sand, make a pearl!!

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I think you said it all perfectly.

I will remember this on the difficult days.

Thank you for this.

The "pearl--making" metaphor has a dark side, oftenest seen in the statements of abusers who work as teachers, therapists, guidance counselors, and others in the "helping professional" fields. They can and do, when they wish, justify their abuses (and the abuses they allow or encourage children to perform on other children in the professional's care) as the conferring of a favor, by encouraging better character through pain and suffering as the pearl-farmer encourages pearls by damaging the oyster.
Yes, the irritant damages the oyster to make the cyst we call a pearl. Any pearl-farmer will tell you, if you ask, that the irritants -- and the pearls that grow thereby -- make the oyster sick and dysfunctional. The larger and rougher the irritant, the larger and more lustrous the pearl, the more it will hinder the health and flourishing of the oyster itself -- warping the shell till it cannot properly close, or doing other things detrimental to an oyster's health and development.
To tell a man or woman, boy or girl, that he or she should see harmful events as glorious opportunities for "making pearls" tells him or her that -- like an oyster -- s/he may justifiably undergo damage so that others may shine at his or her expense.

The "pearl--making" metaphor has a dark side, oftenest seen in the statements of abusers who work as teachers, therapists, guidance counselors, and others in the "helping professional" fields. They can and do, when they wish, justify their abuses (and the abuses they allow or encourage children to perform on other children in the professional's care) as the conferring of a favor, by encouraging better character through pain and suffering as the pearl-farmer encourages pearls by damaging the oyster.
Yes, the irritant damages the oyster to make the cyst we call a pearl. Any pearl-farmer will tell you, if you ask, that the irritants -- and the pearls that grow thereby -- make the oyster sick and dysfunctional. The larger and rougher the irritant, the larger and more lustrous the pearl, the more it will hinder the health and flourishing of the oyster itself -- warping the shell till it cannot properly close, or doing other things detrimental to an oyster's health and development.
To tell a man or woman, boy or girl, that he or she should see harmful events as glorious opportunities for "making pearls" tells him or her that -- like an oyster -- s/he may justifiably undergo damage so that others may shine at his or her expense.

No-one should ever justify abuse of any kind. However, in this warped world, it exists. You and I should not be ostracized, bullied, or told we are less than for the fact that we have Asperger’s. But it happens all to often.

We fight it when we can, each in our own way -- but when we can’t we have to choose how to respond to it. Do we become victims? Do we let ourselves get beaten down? Or do we try to find a way to make something positive out of a bad situation? Can we use our bad experiences to help others?

I am reading a book called the “Adversity Advantage” - and it talks about the space between “stimulus” and “response.” The space between “stimulus” and “response” is made up of the choices like these. We can’t always choose the stimuli than come our way, positive or negative - but we can choose the response. That response can drastically change the outcome for the better or the worse.

We cannot control the actions of others, but we can control our actions. So, how do we react to a world that is often unjust to many who are different? Do we react in a way that makes it worse (victim), or in a way that makes it better?