Taking the Heat!

Do you cope well under pressure? I am sitting here making this post with a cuppa in my hand. To make my cuppa, I had to put the kettle on, let the water boil and dunk my earl grey tea bag in for about a minute. Then, after adding my dash of evaporated milk, I sit down for a nice cup of aromatic stimulus - just what I need mid-afternoon.

Which reminds me of a story I once read. About a carrot, and egg and a coffee bean. And the wise woman who told it to her daughter.

The story goes that a young lady had gone to her mother and shared how hard things were for her. It seemed like one thing after another was going wrong. She felt awful.

In reply, her mother took her to the kitchen where she put three pots of water on the stove. Into the first one, she put carrots. The second one had eggs and the third one she dropped some ground coffee beans. Then wise mother sat down, without saying a word.

Puzzled, the girl sat with her mother. For about fifteen-twenty minutes. Then her mother turned off the gas.

Turning to her daugher, she placed the carrots, eggs and coffee into different bowls. Then she asked her daughter what she saw.

Getting the obvious answer, her mother then asked her to touch the first two objects.

The carrots were soft to touch.

The eggs shells, cracked open, revealed a hard egg.

The coffee, when sipped, tasted rich and nice.

Smiling, the young woman turned to her mother and asked for an explanation.

Patiently her mother observed that the three had faced the same adversity - the boiling hot water. But the reactions of each were different.

The carrot, initially strong, hard and unyielding came out softened and weak.

The egg's outer shell had protected the soft centre. But after going through the heat, the inside had hardened.

The ground coffee, however, had changed the water....

Hence the morale of the story - when adversity strikes, when pressure comes, when the heat is on, how do we respond? Like a carrot, initially seeming strong but wilting and weak? Like an egg which an initially soft heat but gets hard in difficult times? Perhaps bitter as well?

Or are we like the coffee bean? Changing the hot water, the very situation that inflicts the heat and perhas pain. It is the hot water that releases the flavour and fragrance of the coffee.

When things are hardest, darkest, most painful and difficult, it is important to change the situation around us, and not vice-versa; to overcome than to be overcomed.

This applies no matter what profile you are.