Outlook key to adapting to life’s stresses

“Dear Dr. LeCrone, you have often written about ways to adapt, deal with change and handle stress. The following story came to me by e-mail without a source or author. I think you readers might enjoy its message so I will pass it on to you.”

A daughter complained to her father about her dissatisfaction with life. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He placed three pots of water on the stove until they 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 waited, wondering what he was doing. In about twenty minutes he fished the carrots and eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her he asked. “What do you see?” “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. 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 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 but after a death, divorce, or layoff do you become hardened and stiff?

Or are you like the coffee bean? The bean changes the hot water, the thing that is bringing the pain. When the water gets the hottest, it tastes the best.

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 a coffee bean?

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 2001