Carrots, Eggs and Coffee Beans…

A young man complained to his Mom that his life was too tough, things were too hard, that he did not know how he was going to make it and was seriously thinking of just giving up. When one problem was solved, two more problems arose. It just seemed like everything and everybody was against him.

His Mom took him to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed them on the stove over a hot fire. Soon the water came to a boil. In the first pot the Mom placed the carrots, in the second pot she placed the eggs and in the third pot she put in the coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word to her Son for about twenty minutes. He was fidgety and just about to leave because he could not understand why his Mom was cooking carrots, eggs and coffee for him. She turned the burners off and retrieved the carrots from the pot and put them in a bowl. She fished the eggs out and put them in a bowl and then ladled out some coffee in another bowl. The Mom looked directly at her Son’s eyes and asked what he saw. “Carrots, eggs and coffee” her Son sarcastically replied. The Mom brought him close to the three bowls and asked her to feel the warm carrots and tell her what he felt. The Son replied that the carrots were soft and mushy. The Mom asked the son to take one of the fragile eggs and break it open; he did and when he pulled away the shell he observed a hard boiled egg, no longer fragile. Finally the Mom asked the Son to smell and take a sip of coffee. The Son smiled as he smelled the rich aroma and took a sip of coffee. The Son then looked at his Mom and asked, “what does any of this mean to me?”

The Mom explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity… boiling water. Each reacted differently, the carrots went in strong, firm, unrelenting, but after the heat of the boiling water the carrots softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile with a thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior but after sitting in the hot boiling water the liquid interior became hardened. The coffee beans were unique. After they were in the hot boiling water, the coffee beans changed the water. The coffee beans changed the color of the water, made the water smell good and (to most) taste good as well.

“Which one are you like” asked the Mom. “When you face the heat of adversity how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”

Adversity, we all face it but how do we handle the heat of adversity?

Are we like the carrots that are strong and tough but when the heat is on become soft and out of shape. Are we like the egg with a fragile shell and even more fragile inside that drastically changes with the heat? Does my shell look the same but after the heat of adversity do I become hard and tough on the inside with a stiff spirit and hardened heart? Or…are we like the coffee bean? The coffee beans changed the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the heat, the pain the adversity. The hot water released the coffee beans pent-up fragrance and flavor and actually provided a semblance of “good feeling” and confidence. The heat of adversity provides us the opportunity, when things are seemingly at their worst, to get better and have a positive effect on everything around us. Adversity is the opportunity to excel when everything around us seems to be wilting or steadfastly hardening to brace for the crash.