Title looks funny. Right? I can explain. Last month I got one mail (post) saying that I can become a member of Golden Key International Honor society. People with very good GPA can become members of this society. Frankly speaking I didn't pay that much attention. Even my friend suggested me to go for that. Anyway at the moment I decided not to join that society as I had to pay $70.00 if I want to. After a while one of my officemate explained the advantages of being a member of that society. So I thought one time $70 is worth. So I paid immediately online and became a member of it. After that I went to this ceremony on last Friday where they were honoring new members by giving some certificates. It was at 5:30 in the evening. I was kind of in dilemma weather to go or not to that function as I wanted to play racquetball with my friend. In the end I thought of going to that function with an idea of staying for half an hour and going to racquetball after that.
I went there and they asked me to fill some forms. After I did that I got a paper showing the names of people who became members of that society this year. It was kind of interesting to know that there were not that many students. That means I was one of very few people who got very good GPA. Cool. At the same time no big deal. Anyway we went inside and sat in our seats waiting for the ceremony to begin. I never liked the beginning of any kind of ceremony as people give speeches for long time. So I was hoping that people would finish their speeches in short time. But I got frustrated to see that ceremony didn't start on time. Because of some problem, they started it almost 15 minutes late. All this time my worry was whether my friend would be ready to play racquetball if I went late. Finally when the function started, the first person made me really worried an frustrated giving some stupid speed. It was so bad, at one point of time I just wanted to leave. Luckily when I was thinking like that, she finished the speech. Then some other person started his speech. It was not great, but at the same time it was not bad either. He made us laugh with some jokes. so it was kind of good even though he was not part of the speakers for the day. Finally I was relieved to know that there was only one speaker left before we could get our certificates. Then came the jolt.
Her name was Martha Woodman. She might be 55 years old or around 50. I didn't hear properly when someone gave introduction about her and asked her to come to podium. Then I noticed her having problems finding the podium. For a second I thought that she got confused or she got tense about her speech. But at the same time I didn't see any papers in her hand. That definitely made me curious. I mean lot of people always prepare their speech ahead of th event and read everything from the paper. I guess it doesn't look good that way. People don't feel connected to their speeches. As I didn't see something like that with her, I was ready to listen to her. The first sentence she talked was "The advantage of being blind is I don't have to carry any papers, but need to remember everything.". That's it for a second I was really shocked. Then I understood why she had problems in finding the podium. Then I started thinking whether she was born blind or had become blind because of some accident.
First she congratulated all the students for their achievement. Then after a while she explained why she lost her vision. She lost her vision because of some disease almost 6 years back from now. When she was on the bed in the hospital lot of people came to her and started saying good things to her to make her feel good. I guess it is kind of normal for people trying to comfort others when they are in difficult situation. It seems lot of people were saying it would make her strong. At the end of the day, it seems she got kind of frustrated to hear all that. She was not sure whether how she was going to deal with it. After that she took it as a challenge and started living her life. She is working as a professor at my university UVM. She is a professor in Business administration. It seems one day her sister came to her and started telling some story in their conversation. Here I want to say few words about this. Initially her speech was like any others. But after a while I couldn't turn my face from her. I was leaning forward as though I would miss something if I didn't do that. It was really interesting. Same with everyone in the auditorium. I explain the story in my own words here.
There were three things. First one was a carrot, second one was an egg and the third one was a coffee bean. Someone put all these things in to a steel pot. Then water was added to all those three pots. After that those 3 pots were heated for almost 20 minutes. Finally the heat was turned off. When checked, carrots became mushy and soft, inside of the eggs became hard and the third pot became full of coffee. So first carrot was hard, but in the end it became soft. At first egg was hard on outside and soft inside. But at the end inside of the egg also became strong. With coffee bean, all the water was turned into coffee. That means in the face of difficulties and hardships carrot gave up by becoming soft. From outside it looked like it could handle anything by being hard until it faced the real difficulty. Whereas egg looked strong from outside and soft inside with shell being hard and the material inside the egg being soft. That means it looks strong from outside, but soft inside. But going through difficulties the inside changed into hard thing. So egg could change herself and stand the difficulties by becoming hard inside. That means it changed herself into hard from soft. Whereas in the case of coffee beans even though they are put into water and heated for almost 20 minutes they never gave up and gave back coffee with great smell. That means coffee beans fought the difficulties and tried to be strong and good even in the case of difficulties. So all people belong to different cases I explained here. Most of the people are like carrots. Some of them are like eggs. But very few people are like coffee beans.
Anyway, she said her sister told her that she was proud to have coffee bean in her family. I felt she was absolutely right. It was kind of eye opener for me. I know for sure that lot of people, including me, start complaining even for small problems in our lives. But looking at people like her, I feel our problems are nothing. I have everything in my life. Even though I have a some health related issue with my spine, I guess I am ok to do everything. It is kind of frustrating to live with some kind of inconvenience all the time caused by pain. Still compared to her problem, mine is nothing. More over she is like a coffee bean as she is trying to do good to others by being strong. She is working as a teacher in the university. So she is giving example to the society. Whereas I am frustrated and depressed because of my problems. I am sure I don't want to give up like carrot. I guess I am becoming strong like egg in the story. I am learning to change my self to stand difficulties. I want to be like a coffee bean. People might think that one can not become a coffee bean, it has to be a born quality. I don't think so. People comment on so many things just like that as though they have plenty of experience. Believe me. You can't do that. Don't make any opinions unless you have had experience with that. So what I think is we can all learn through by going through rough time and still can emerge as winners. We can all become coffee beans. I don't know about you. I will definitely try to become a coffee bean.
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