A young woman went to her mother and complained 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. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil. In the first pot she placed a potato, in the second she placed an egg, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil. She didn’t say one word.

In twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished out the potato and placed it in a bowl. She pulled the egg out and placed it in a bowl. She ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked “Tell me what you see?” “A potato, an egg, and coffee,” the daughter answered.

Her mother asked her to feel the potato. She did and noted that it was soft. Her mother said to break the egg. She did and peeled off the shell and observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked her daughter to sip the coffee. She did and smiled as she tasted its rich aroma and flavor. The daughter asked “what does all this mean, Mom?”

Her mother explained that each object had faced the same adversity, boiling water. Each reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. After being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile with a thin outer shell that protected its liquid interior. After sitting in boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were different, they changed the water. “Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

When experiencing ‘adversity’:

• Do you go soft and weak?
• Are you fragile on the outside and hard in the centre?
• Or do you change ‘the water’ (aka environment/situation) and effect positive change?

May God grant you enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to keep you content. The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the most of everything that comes along their way. You can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches. When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you are the one smiling and everyone around you is crying.

We’ll drink to that!

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