阅读理解
One day a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn,t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground(研磨过的)coffee beans in the third pot.
He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter.
After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her, he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”
“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.
“Look closer,” he said. She did and noticed that potatoes were soft. After pulling off the shell of the egg, she found the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the rich aroma from the coffee brought a smile to her face.
“Father, what does this mean?”She asked.
He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.
However, each one reacted differently.
The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.
The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.
However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they met the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.
“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? ”