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 finallyturned 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.
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