Sunday, February 24, 2013

Sounds like breakfast..

This little story popped up in my fb newsfeed a few weeks ago, and I have been turning it over in my head ever since. 

A young woman went to her Grandmother and told her 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.

Her Grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans.

She let them sit and boil without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her Granddaughter, she asked, "Tell me, what do you see?" "Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

The Grandmother asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft and mushy. She then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hardened egg. Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee.

 "What's the point, Grandma?"

Her Grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity - boiling water - but each reacted differently.


The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it 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?" she asked her Granddaughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"


I have allowed myself, encouraged myself even, to become the egg. Hard and unyielding, wrapped up in a shell that does not protect my soft insides but hides the hard and cynical center of me from view.

I always believed that I handled life's difficulties well, gaining wisdom from my mistakes and fighting the injustices as best I could. What I discovered however, was quite different.

 I let every negative thing in my life harden my heart. I was not learning from my mistakes.. I was using them to build my armor. I railed against circumstances I would never gain control of, never change, taking every rebuff as another reason to mortar my walls high and strong. I unwittingly formed an unbreakable barrier between me and the world, all while believing I was only creating a thin shell.

These walls do not serve me well. They keep out love and friendship and happiness and hope.. and hold in fear and pain and loneliness and regret.

 I am tired of living inside this fortress, and I have begun to create a doorway.. but because I thought I was only cracking a shell, the process is more involved than I expected. 

I am afraid.

When the door is done, will I be able to open it.. will I even have the nerve to reach for the handle?

I am the egg, but I want to be the coffee.

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