The story goes like this:
A young woman went to her mother and told her about the problems she was facing in life. She said she was tired of fighting and struggling and didn’t know how to keep going.
The mother took her to the kitchen and filled three pots with water. She placed each pot on a burner, turned on the heat, and put a potato in one pot, an egg in the second, and coffee beans in the third.
After a while, she turned off the burners and fished out the potato, egg, and coffee beans, and asked her daughter to observe them carefully.
The potato was soft and had become very weak. The egg, which had been fragile, now had a hardened shell inside. But the coffee beans had transformed the water into a rich and aromatic coffee.
The mother then explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity – boiling water. However, each of them had reacted differently.
The potato went in strong, firm, and hard, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak. The egg had been fragile and had a thin outer shell, but in boiling water, it had become hard inside.
The coffee beans, on the other hand, had changed the water and created something new.
The mother explained that we all face adversity, and how we react to it depends on us. We can either become weak, hard, or transform the situation into something positive.
The young woman realized that she had a choice – to be like a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean.