It's all in your response

I try to read HT’s Inner Voice column everyday. Many a times I felt the need of keeping some of the cuttings but did not. From now on, I'll put them up on Vibgyor. So here is an interesting one.

A young woman complained to her mother about her hardships. Her mother took her to the kitchen and filled three pots with water, placing each on the stove over a high flame. Soon the water came to boil. In the first pot she had placed carrots, in the second she had placed eggs and in the last she had placed ground coffee beans. In about 20 minutes, she turned off the burners. The mother then took out the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She lifted out the eggs and placed them in another bowl. The she ladled the coffee out and placed that in a bowl, too.

She asked her daughter to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After peeling the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother fixed the coffee and asked the daughter to sip it. The daughter tasted its richness.

She asked," What does it mean, Mother?" Her mother explained that each of these had faced the same adversity, boiling water and each had reacted differently. The carrot went in hard and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile, after the boiling water, its inside became hardened. But the ground coffee beans were unique-after landing in the boiling water; they 'd changed the water itself. The message? We can change adversity into a whole new world if we use it creatively as the coffee did.