Coffee?

Who said breakfast needs to be a bowl of cereal and milk? This morning, I made my bride of 39 years a hamburger patty with cheese, hash browns with egg and Bush’s baked beans with strawberries all on the grill with coffee. Thank God for my cast iron skillet. And while eating breakfast, I was reminded of a story.

What kind of person are you? The carrot, the egg or the coffee bean.

Yes, you heard me right. Are you a carrot person, an egg person or the coffee bean person.

Imagine we are camping. It is time to make something at the campfire. I take 3 pots and fill them with water. Water as you know is life. The fire is bad times or of stress. The carrot is stiff, the egg has a hard shell but is gushy inside and the coffee bean is hard.

Now, the pots of water are boiling, and I put the carrot in one pot, the egg in the other and the coffee bean in the last.

Now, after 5 minutes, I take the 3 pots out of the fire and let them cool. Remember the carrot that was hard? It is now soft and the water is still clear. So a hardened person placed under stress can become soft and looses its original characteristics. Now the egg. It still has a hard shell but the gushy part is now hard and the water is clear. So someone who is soft and put under stress can become hardened and also looses its characteristics. Finally, the coffee bean. It is softer and its characteristics have been changed but the water was also effected by the bean. The coffee bean had as much effect on the water as the stress did on the coffee bean. A coffee bean person, under stress, is effected by the stress but has an effect on the world around him as well.

So, what kind of person are you when under stress? Do you get gushy and soft, hardened and bitter or do you take the stress and have as much effect on the world as the stress had on you?

Be the bean, not the carrot or the egg. Breakfast was great by the way.