A lesson we could all learn from.
This woman was just cheated on by her husband of 5 years. She was having a real tough time accepting what was happening so much so, that she just wanted to give up in every aspect of her life. She was tired of fighting and of struggling, she had no motivation to get up out of bed in the morning. Her life was a disaster.
One day she went to visit her grandmother to seek comfort.
Her grandmother was a clever and thoughtful woman. She filled three pots with water and placed each of them on high fire. In no time at all the pots all came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans.
Without saying a word, she watched them sit and boil.
After around 20 minutes she finally turned off the burners. She fished the carrots and the eggs out of the pan and placed them in a bowl next to the coffee.
Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, ‘Tell me what you see.’
‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied.
Her grandmother then asked her to feel the carrots . She did and the young woman noticed that they were soft. The grandmother asked the woman to take the egg and break it. After peeling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.
Finally the grandmother told her to take a sip of the coffee. The young woman loved coffee, and she smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.
She paused for a moment and then asked ‘What does it mean, grandmother?’
Her grandmother then went on to explain how each of these objects had faced adversity: boiling water. She then explained how each of the different objects had reacted differently, in their own ways. Before the adversity the carrot was strong, hard, and unrelenting, but was now soft and weak as a result. The egg was once fragile. It’s shell was the only thing that protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiled water, its insides became hardened.
Last but definitely not least, she pointed out how the coffee beans were unique. After being added to the boiling water, they had not only changed themselves, but they had also changed the water they were in.
The grandmother then asked “Which are you?”
“When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”
Are you the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity you wilt and become soft, loosing your strength.
Are you the egg, with soft gooey insides until it changes under the heat? Are you a fluid spirit that solidify at the first sign of hardship.
Or are you in fact the coffee bean? The bean not only develops in to something else, but it changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, the coffee releases its full fragrance and flavor. When things are at their worst, the coffee gets better, and changes the situation around it.
When things are tough, and I mean really tough, do you elevate yourself to another level?
How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
We are here to tell you that the happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.
May we all be like the COFFEE.
Share this with your friends and family if you know someone going though hard time.
