A lady, in her wanderings, came across a seashore on one pleasant night. As she gazed across the sea she could see the lights from ships anchored in the distance. Those flickering lights made her yearn for them. As she restlessly walked on, she picked up pebbles and started tossing them into the sea. It was almost like her way of reaching out to the distant lights, which seemed so close and yet were so far, yet so tempting. How long she threw pebbles into the sea, she knew not, nor she knew how many but late into the night, she was still occupied by this. Somewhere along the way she drifted to sleep and woke up next morning to first ray of dawn, but it seem that all around her things were sparkling. It was as if she was not sleeping on sand, but on a bed of light. She looked around nonplussed and gasped in shock and wonder - all around her, here and there on the sand, were pieces of diamond strewn across the breadth of the beach. They were beside her, close to her, as they were all night long - but its only in the light of day could she see their worth - the diamonds that she took to be pebbles and had tossed into the sea. And when she looked up, to see the ship that had obsessed her, she could not find it into the horizon in any direction. The lady was fortunate to have the benefit of light before she exhausted the beach and her life of all the diamonds that were there. But for most of us the light has to come from within, letting us know the true worth of what we have, the good things that are near to us - which we consider worthless.