I have decided to dedicate a post on Thursday to therapy, and offer you the many tips I have learned on the couch. They will be a good reminder for me, as well, of something small I can concentrate on. Many of them are published in my book, “The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit.“

There’s a story that goes like this: One day a young woman was whining to her father about how hard life was. She was tired of fighting and struggling. Sounds familiar, right?

He was a chef, so he set out three pots and boiled water in each of them. In the first he placed a carrot, in the second an egg, and in the third some ground coffee beans. After 20 minutes he turned off the burners. Then he explained how all three reacted differently to the heat. The carrot went in firm, but softened in the boiling water. The egg hardened on the inside. And the coffee beans, well, they actually changed the water.

“When you confront adversity, which one will you be?” he asked his daughter. “The carrot that starts out strong but wilts under pressure? The egg that becomes callous and bitter? Or the coffee bean, which makes something useful, tasty, even beautiful from the boiling water?”