How To Adapt In Changing Times

So once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and she didn't know how she was going to make it.

She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. She said it seemed just as one problem was solved another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef took her into the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each one on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in a second pot and ground coffee beans into a third pot. He then let them sit to boil without saying a word to his daughter.

The daughter moaned griped and complained but patiently waited, wondering what her father was doing. After 20 minutes or so, he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them into a bowl.

He pulled the eggs out and placed them into another ball and then he took and ladled the coffee out and placed it into a cup turning to his daughter.

He asked his daughter, what do you see?

She said, potatoes, eggs, and coffee in a snarky voice. Of course, but look closer he said and touch the potatoes.

She did and noticed that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and to break it, and after pulling off the shell, she observed that the liquid egg had now become hard-boiled. Finally, he asked her to sniff the coffee out of the cup; it's rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

Father, what does this all mean she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans had to each face the same adversity, the boiling water. However, each one reacted to it differently.

The potato, which was strong and hard and unrelenting before it went in. Once it went into the bowling, water became soft and weak.

The egg went in fragile with a thin outer shell and its interior all liquid until it was put into boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed with the water and became something new.

Which one are you he asked his daughter.

How do you choose to change with adversity?

And so I ask you the same question. Which are you?

Are you the potato, the egg or the coffee beans?

When you are subjected to adversity, do you become soft and weak like a potato or do you become hardened and bittered like the egg or do use the adversity to become something new?

You see in life, we will always be subject to adversity. If you’re 50+ you’ve already experienced many adversities in and around your life.

In the current crisis we find ourselves, some are choosing to become soft and weak. Others are becoming hard and embittered and angry.

And, yet others are choosing to be the exception and are adapting with the adversity to become something new, something delightful and delicious to the world and to their surrounding friends and family.

You cannot change the adversity. But based on your response to it, you can choose to have it become your advantage, to convert all the struggles that you're experiencing into something positive and become something better than you were before the adversity.

You have that choice.

So I want you to take a moment to reflect and write down in your daily journal, how have you handled this adversity up to this point where you, the potato, the egg or the coffee beans.

And then write down how you're going to start handling this adversity starting today and moving forward.

Dr Fred “focused on retirement” Rouse, CFP

The REAL Money Doctor