Coffee, Carrots and Eggs

Thursday’s Thought

I read an article recently on the interwebs that offered the following parable –

Carrots, eggs, and ground coffee beans are all placed into boiling water. Carrots started out strong and unrelenting, but after being boiled, were soft and weak. Eggs started out fragile; the thin outer shell was able to protect the liquid interior, but after the boiling water, the inside hardened. Coffee grounds were unique though – after they were in boiling water, they changed the water, not the other way around.

How lovely, right?

After I read this, I sat back and thought about which of these three items I resemble most closely. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been like a carrot, trudging along with full-force and strength, only to find my resolve weakened and my will softened. And of course there are plenty of times when my gooey liquid inside has turned hard for one reason or another.

I don’t know if I can say with real honesty that I’m even life the coffee ground all of the time. I like to think I change my world, or the world at large, but I don’t know if that’s all the way true.  Like the coffee bean though, when things are heating up, I change with the situation around me. I try my best to elevate my strategy and not my voice.

Maybe we’re all a bit of all three of these things. I don’t think I’d want to never go soft like the carrot or have a change of heart, like with the egg. I guess I just want enough happiness to make me sweet, trials to make me strong, challenges to keep me humble and enough hope to keep me going.