Be Like The Coffee Bean

There was a little boy by the name “Ryan” who was always complaining to his teacher in class. He could never complete his homework because there were too many distractions at home… guests kept coming over, his sister wanted to see cartoons on the television, his parents wanted him to help at home and so on. In school, he could not concentrate because the boy who sat next to him talked too much, he could not complete his exam because his pencil point kept breaking.

The teacher quietly heard him and then asked him to bring three things to class the next day. What were they? They were a carrot, an egg and some coffee beans. Ryan brought them to class and gave them to his teacher the next day. Then the teacher put each of the three items in a different container and put all three containers on separate burners for the same amount of time.

In about 20 minutes, the teacher turned off the burners. He removed the carrot, egg and coffee and placed them in separate bowls. Turning to Ryan he asked, “What do you see?” “A carrot, an egg and coffee” was the reply. He asked Ryan to feel them. Ryan did so and noted that the carrots were soft and the egg was hard-boiled. Finally, he sipped the coffee and smiled as he tasted its rich aroma. Humbly he asked, “What does it all mean sir?” The teacher explained that each of these had faced the same situation, boiling water, but each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. But after sitting through the boiling water, it became hard. The ground coffee beans were unique however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water. “Which are you?” he asked Ryan. “When crisis knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”

This story has an important lesson for us. Are you like the carrot that seems hard, but in crisis do you lose your strength? Or are you like the egg, which has a gentle heart but lets a bad experience make you bitter and tough. Children, we must all aim to be like the coffee bean. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and make things around you better. How you think about the problem is more important than the problem itself. That is why it is so important to always think positive. The secret of life isn’t what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.