Subject: Which Are You? {Insp}
From: Unicorn (unicorn@indenial.com)
Date: Sun May 06 2001 - 15:02:00 EDT
"Which Are You?"
A daughter complained to her father about her life
and how things were so hard for her. She did not
know how she was going to make it and wanted to
give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It
seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled
three pots with water and placed each on a high fire.
Soon the pots came to a boil.
In one he placed carrots, in the second he placed
eggs, and the last he placed ground coffee beans.
He let them sit and boil, without saying a word.
The daughter sucked her teeth and impatiently waited,
wondering what he was doing. In about twenty minutes
he turned off the burners. He fished the carrots out
and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and
placed them a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out and
placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her he asked. "Darling, what do you see?"
"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.
He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots.
She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked
her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell,
she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her
to sip the coffee. She smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.
She humbly asked. "What does it mean Father?"
He explained that each of them had faced the same
adversity, boiling water, but each reacted differently.
The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. But
after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened
and became weak.
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected
its liquid interior. But after sitting through the boiling water,
its inside became hardened.
The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After
they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
"Which are you?" he asked his daughter. "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 hard, but with pain and
adversity do you wilt and become soft and lose your
strength?
Are you the egg, which starts off with a malleable heart?
Were you a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a
divorce, or a layoff have you become hardened and stiff.
Your shell looks the same, but are you bitter and tough
with a stiff spirit and heart?
Or are you like the coffee bean? The bean changes the
hot water, the thing that is bringing the pain, to its peak
flavor reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit. When the water
gets the hottest, it just tastes better.
If you are like the coffee bean, when things are at their
worst, you get better and make things better around you.
How do you handle adversity?
Are you a carrot, an egg, or coffee?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Fri Jun 01 2001 - 00:00:01 EDT