How To Overcome: The Classic Carrot, Egg, and Bean Coffee Story

You may never look at a cup of coffee the same way again!

A young woman told her mother how difficult things were for her.

She did not know how she was going to make it and felt like giving up.

Her mother took her to the kitchen and filled three pots with water. Soon the water started
boiling. In the first pot, she placed carrots. In the second, she put eggs. And in the third, she
placed coffee beans. She let them sit and boil.

In about twenty minutes, she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them
on a plate. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and
placed it in a mug.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, “What do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” her daughter replied.

Her mother handed her some carrots. They were soft.

The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed that the egg was now hard boiled.

Then the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich
aroma.

Then the daughter asked, “What does all this mean?”

Her mother said that each of these had faced the same adversity—boiling water. But each reacted
differently.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you
respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose
my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with an open heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit,
but after a death, a break-up, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened
and stiff?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water — the very circumstance
that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like
the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another
level?

How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Donkey In The Well: A Classic Short Motivational Story

Once upon a time, there was a little donkey that lived on a ranch. The little donkey spent all of
his time in a pen with his grandfather. One day, the little donkey said, “Grandpa, I want to grow
up to be big and strong like you.

What do I have to do?”

Grandpa said, “All you have to do is learn how to shake it off and step up.”

That confused the little donkey so he asked his grandfather what that meant.

Grandpa said, “Let me tell you a classic short motivational story! One day, when I was just about
your age, I was right here in this pen when someone left the gate open by mistake. Well, I
escaped and started walking out on the prairie. I was admiring the big mountains and the huge
sky.

Then, all of a sudden, when I wasn’t looking at where I was going, I fell into an old, abandoned
well. I was trapped at the bottom of the well, scared to death, thinking I was going to die. I was
the donkey in the well. Then, within a few minutes, I heard a truck and looked up and saw an old
farmer. I thought he would surely save me. But he just looked down at me, shook his head, got
back into his truck, and left.

“A few hours later, I heard what sounded like four or five trucks. I looked up and saw the farmer
and several of his friends. The old farmer said, ‘Boys, the well’s abandoned and that little
donkey ain’t worth anything, so let’s get to work.’

“They got their pick axes and shovels and started burying me alive. Now I knew I was going to
die! The dirt started burying my hooves and then it started covering my lower legs and then I
suddenly realised something — every time a shovel-full of dirt landed on my back, I could shake
it off and step up on it. So I shook it off and stepped up, and shook it off and stepped up, and I
continued shaking and stepping, and shaking and stepping, until I eventually shook off enough
and stepped up enough that I was able to step out of the well and save my life!”

Then the grandfather looked right at the little donkey and said,

“Remember, if you want to grow up to be big and strong, you have to learn how to shake it off
and step up.” 

Nails In The Fence: A Story About Anger

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.

His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper,
he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned
to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He
discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and
the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his
temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.

He said, ‘You’ve done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be
the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.

You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m
sorry, the wound is still there and a verbal wound is just as bad as a physical one. 

The Fox and the Grapes

One afternoon, a fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a lofty branch.

“Just the thing to quench my thirst,” he thought.

Taking a couple of steps back, the fox jumped and just missed the hanging grapes. The fox tried again but still failed to reach them.

Finally, giving up, the fox turned his nose up and said, “They’re probably sour anyway,” and walked away.

Moral of the story: It’s easy to despise what you can't have.

Two Friends and the Bear

Vijay and Raju were friends. One day while on holiday, exploring a forest, they saw a bear coming towards them.

Naturally, they were both frightened, so Raju, who knew how to climb trees, climbed one quickly. He didn’t spare a thought for his friend who had no idea how to climb.

Vijay thought for a moment. He had heard that animals don’t attack dead bodies, so he fell to the ground and held his breath. The bear sniffed him, thought he was dead, and went on its way.

Raju, after he had climbed down from the tree asked Vijay, “What did the bear whisper in your ears?”

Vijay replied, “The bear asked me to keep away from friends like you.”

Moral of the story: A friend in need is a friend indeed.

The Greedy Lion

It was an incredibly hot day and a lion was feeling very hungry.

He crawled out of his den and searched here and there, but he could only find a small hare. He caught the hare, but with some hesitation as he knew the hare wouldn’t fill him up.

As the lion was about to kill the hare, he spotted a deer coming his way and thought, “Instead of eating this small hare, let me eat that big deer.”

So he let the hare go and went after the deer, but it vanished in the forest. The lion now had nothing to eat as the hare was also long gone.

Moral of the story: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Having a Best Friend

Two friends were walking through the desert. At one stage in their journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything he wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to have a wash. The one who had been slapped got stuck in a mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he had recovered from his shock, he wrote on a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write in stone, why?”

The other friend replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Moral of the story: Don’t value the things you have in your life. Value those who you have in your life.