The Year Of The Coffee Bean

Until today I hadn’t quite figured out what my resolution will be for this year. I actually stopped making resolutions a couple of years ago and decided to create a yearly sort of mantra to follow.

2006 – The Year To Take Risks
2007 – The Year To Take Smart Risks
2008 – The Year To Be Optimistic and Think Positively
2009 ???

I’ve thought about this a couple of times now. I want it to be something realistic and yet challenging. I want to gain something from it, and I want to be able to share what I gain with others.

I was reading through my old LiveJournal today. I often find that I’ve learned a lot and have come a long way by reflecting on my challenges of the past. It’s like looking outside the box at the girl back then. The girl back then has helped shape me to be the woman I am now, and the girl back then continues to help shape me when I reflect back upon what she’s learned.

This was a past entry I found:

January 6, 2008

An excerpt from: “Bad Childhood, Good Life” by Laura Schlessinger:
"A young woman went to her mother and complained about her hard life. She was tired of the struggle, felt like giving up, but was willing to hear advice from her mother.

Her mother took her into the kitchen, filled three pots with water, and added carrots to one pot, an egg to another pot, and coffee beans to the third. She turned the heat under them up to HIGH and let them boil.

At the end of about half an hour, she removed the carrots, egg, and coffee beans from the pots and put them on plates. She asked her daughter what she saw and learned. The daughter had no clue. So the mother explained that each of those three foodstuffs had been exposed to the same challenge: boiling water. The carrots went in strong and sturdy and then turned to mush. The egg went in fragile and ultimately turned hard. And the coffee beans changed the hot water around them -- producing a wonderful aroma and a delight to the taste buds.

'So, my darling daughter, when the hour is the darkest and the trials are the greatest, how do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot that loses its strength? Are you the egg that becomes tough and hardened? Are you the coffee bean that influences the universe in a positive, hopeful way?' "

I hope all of you think about this and understand the message.

Despite the struggles that I have encountered, I have always aimed at being the coffee bean that influenced the universe in a positive and hopeful way.

Re-reading that entry made me think that with my current situation it might be most beneficial to myself and those around me if I focused this year on making sure that I take my 2008 Positive and Optimistic view and influence it upon those around me. Not that I want to wear rose-colored glasses and loose touch with reality, but thinking positively and looking for the positive things has made a world of difference in my life.

Right now I am often faced with a lot of negativity and pessimism. I don’t expect to change anyone, but I’d like to make sure that I’m being the example of positive and optimistic influence … if that makes sense.

I’ve decided that 2009 will be The Year Of The Coffee Bean … a.k.a The Year Of Being A Positive Influence.