This short story is about a father who wants to teach his daughter a lesson. The short story is about dealing with failure and disappointments. Read on for the Struggles of Our Life.
The Struggles of Our Life
Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it.
She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire.
Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter.
The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners and took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.
Turning to her, he asked, “Daughter, what do you see?”
“Potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she hastily replied.
“That’s right, but look a little bit closer” he said, “and touch the potatoes”. She did and noted that the potatoes were soft.
He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.
Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face. She asked, “Father, what does this mean?”
He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity – the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently.
The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.
The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.
However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.
“Which one are you?” he asked his daughter.
Author of the Struggles of our Life: Unknown.
Lesson
In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is how you choose to react to it and what you make out of it.
According to psychiatrist Victor Frankl, under every situation and circumstance lies a underlying meaning. In his essay he shares his insight that the real question is what we are going to do with that meaning. Everything can be taken away from a human being but the way you react on the things that happen to you, is something you can control.
Life is all about leaning, adopting, and converting all the struggles that we experience into something positive. When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?
Did you like this story? You may also like these ones:
- The Loan Shark
- The Three Brick Layers
- The Wise Man
- The Four Smart Students
- The blind men and the elephant
For more stories about dealing with failure, head over to this section.
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