This week’s Though of the Week is:
“Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”
Sounds a bit weird, but let me explain.
This quote refers to how people cope under pressure or in testing situations.
Consider this:
You have three pans of hot water, all of which you place on your cooker for twenty minutes. In the first pan, you place the carrots, in the second you place the egg and in the third, you place the coffee beans. Now think about what happens.
The carrots go soft. The hot water weakens them.
The egg hardens. What was once a shell to protect something fragile is now a shell to hide the hard interior. The hot water changes the state of the egg.
Now the coffee is special. The coffee changes the hot water to something fragrant and delicious. The water doesn’t control the coffee, the coffee adapts to make the hot water something else.
So I ask again: Are you a carrot, an egg or coffee beans?
When placed in hot water, do you become soft, weak, succumbing to the heat, and bending to it’s will?
Do you become hard and bitter, allowing the heat to change you inside?
Or do you allow your inner flavour to come out and change the hot water into something positive?
At the moment, I think I’m a bit of an egg. When bad things happen, I deal with them by switching off emotionally and looking at things rationally. In the short term, I believe this can work, but long term, cracks will appear in the outer shell, just like the egg in the pan of hot water, and left long enough, the inside will spoil, becoming withered and bitter.
I am working on being coffee. To look at something that could potentially destroy me, and exude something so positive, it takes over the hot water and uses it to become better.
Which one are you? Let me know in the comments 🙂
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What a fantastic analogy. I think I’m a bit of an egg too but I am also trying to be a coffee bean.
Thank you 🙂 being a coffee bean is hard, but it’s a great thing to aim for!
Ha ha! I love this. I would like to be the coffee bean, and actually, I think I am with most things. But if anything really serious happens, I am definitely the egg. I like to think things out logically and I turn off emotionally. As you said, being an egg is definitely a harder route in the long term but much easier to solve a problem right here, right now. Great quote! Thanks for linking up with #CandidCuddles!
I am a total egg! I think I like to make things harder for myself lol. Once day I will be coffee 🙂 Thank you and thanks for hosting!
At the moment I think I’m a bit of a carrot, though normally more of an egg! x #candidcuddles
I do think reactions change depending on the seriousness of the situation etc. I am a total egg, I realise it’s probably not healthy but I am aiming for coffee! x
I think I am a bit of a bean… for some reason, pressure brings out my most creative side. Great post, I have to admit when I saw the carrot, egg and coffee bean, I thought it was going to be a post about the varying states of the mummy tummy 😜. #candidcuddles
That’s great, thriving under pressure is a huge plus for a blogger! Oh I hadn’t thought of that, but it could just as easily be referring to mummy tummy 🙂
That is a great metaphor for life. I use to be the egg. Life was hard for me from the moment of birth so it definitely made me hard but it was out of survival. I had to be hard so that when I got hurt, I could handle it but that made me too bitter and very resentful and angry. I didn’t like the person I was becoming and I needed to show my boys a different way. After years of hard work on myself and lots of therapy, I think now I am the coffee, though from time to time the egg comes out. Something I’m still working on. This one is fabulous Debbie! #candidcuddles
I have read some of your posts about your early years and I think it was a case of surviving any way you could. I really admire you for getting through it, and for finding a way to move on for your boys sake. That must have been hard but totally worth it! Thank you 🙂
Sometimes, I am the coffee. Sometimes, i am the egg. I have to work on that. Thanks for making me think about it, Debbie!
It’s good that sometimes you are coffee, it must be lovely to be that person that can be so positive and raise up everyone around them! Thank you 🙂
Oh hell I am a carrot!!!! But I am striving to be coffee. This is a great analogy, I am going to test it on my colleagues tomorrow & see if their perception is the same as mine, sneaky eh?!? Fab post and a wake up call for sure xx #candidcuddles
I love the idea of sharing with your colleagues, it will be interesting to get their take on it. Thank you 🙂 x
I would have to say I’m a carrot! I’m working hard to be more like coffee though!
Laura xx
I’m aiming for coffee too, what a lovely outlook on life it would be x
I love it! I have been curious what this was all about! I’d like to think I’m a coffee bean but I can be an egg sometimes too – how about if you keep cooking & the egg blows up all over the place? lol Thanks so much for linking up with #candidcuddles x
Thank you 🙂 I’m definitely an egg so I hope I don’t ever over cook that much lol 🙂 Thanks for hosting x
Need to think on this – maybe a soft boiled egg? Ever since I have been a child, I hid my soft interior behind a shell (often cried in the bathroom!) still doing it I think. So what do you think, is that ok or should i evolve into something else ?
I think you can be whoever you want to be! We all have our own ways of dealing with things and they all have their pros and cons. As long as you have a way of coping, if it works for you, I say it’s a good thing!