What are you?

I recently read a story, more like a life lesson, about comparing a carrot, an egg and coffee beans. I like to eat all three! But this was a story about how you react. It goes like this..there are three pans of boiling water, in the first you put the carrot-strong but with the boiling water it become soft and looses it's strength. In the second pan you put an egg-a hard outer shell but liquid on the inside. In the boiling water the egg looks the same on the outside but inside becomes hard and stiff. And finally in the last pan of boiling water you put the coffee beans-the beans are hard and solid but rather than change with the water they change the water.

How do you handle the boiling water and adversity in life? Are you a carrot, egg or coffee bean?

I will admit I vary at times. I'd like to think I'm the coffee bean changing everything around me, making the boiling water smell and taste better than it did before. But I have been a carrot and an egg in the boiling water of life.

The happiest people may not have the best of everything but make the best of what they have-I love and know people like this. Too often we compare ourselves to others. I find this has become a big problem with social media. Too often we compare our lives to others. And honestly I question a lot of what people post. Some people are all perfect and happy. Others are doom and gloom. Like the lady who shared her story of her son with cancer with me a couple of years ago when I stopped in the local Walgreens, often we share our stories at strange times and with strangers because we are afraid to tell those who are close to us-I've done this. My theory is no one wants to hear all your problems and if something great happens I don't want someone to think I'm bragging or wanting attention. Stealth-mode!

Then there are those people who only see every thing as a catastrophe...it is awful and terrible. Being around this kind of person is very draining, hard and often turns people into negative people or turns them away. Life has it's good and bad. If you have a couple of good friends, someone to talk to that helps you through the tough times and laughs with you through the good times you are very blessed. The thing is you have to take the good with the bad and life is not a catastrophe unless it is something like a holocaust or some kind of disaster. Life is not that bad unless you are going through something really bad-my family has faced cancer, illness and death in the past year-the term catastrophe never crossed my mind. We had three weddings and a lot of happiness with those tough times. And we all gathered to celebrate, support and remember-that's life.

So today I'd like to think I'm a coffee bean, making the world around me more colorful, smell better (I did shower and I got new perfume over the weekend!) and full of more flavor! But I'm sure I'll be a carrot and an egg at times too, but for today I'm a coffee bean! May your day and week be boiling water free and if it's not I hope you're a coffee bean!