In the private, heart-to-heart conversation that followed, Abe opened up to Mr. Jackson and let it all spill out. He was feeling a lot of stress and anxiety in both of the main areas of his life. At home, his parents were fighting, and the word “divorce†had even come up. At school, there were some upcoming exams, an essay assignment and a big Friday night football game looming over him.
The game was a particular point of pressure. Not only could a victory bring his team one step closer to reaching the state championship, but there would also be college scouts watching from the bleachers.
And then, on top of all that, there was the weight of other people’s expectations for a star player on the football team. If he played well, he felt under pressure to continue making people happy. If he didn’t play well, he felt the sting of their disappointment.
Do any of these things sound familiar? You don’t have to be an American high-school football player to relate to this story. Like Abe, you’ve probably encountered your fair share of family troubles and the equivalents of big games in your life, such as important presentations, meetings and interviews. At times, you’ve also probably found yourself feeling under too much pressure from too many sides at once – especially if you feel the weight of expectations that come with trying to be an exceptional parent, manager, coach or whatever role you might play in life.
How can we get through these challenging times and overcome these sources of stress? Well, Mr. Jackson has some surprising advice – not just for Abe but for all of us.
After listening to Abe pour out his woes, Mr. Jackson simply nodded and said, “I know how you feel.†Then, he did something you might not expect. He didn’t dispense any words of wisdom or guidance. Instead, he gave Abe a homework assignment – and a rather random-seeming one at that: boil a carrot in a pot of water, observe it for a while, come back tomorrow and report what happened.
That night, Abe carried out the assignment, and the next day, he met with Mr. Jackson after class to share his observations. He’d found that after about ten minutes of being submerged in the boiling water, the carrot got soft.
Mr. Jackson then revealed the point of the assignment. The carrot, he explained, didn’t just get soft; it was softened by the boiling water, which was the environment in which Abe had put it. The water was a harsh environment, and it essentially weakened the carrot by putting it under stressful circumstances.
As Mr. Jackson went on to explain, the same thing can happen to all of us. When life gets difficult, we too find ourselves in hot water, so to speak. Applying this lesson to our own lives, we can see how our homes and workplaces can also turn into harsh environments, and our relationships and careers can put us under stressful circumstances of their own. If we let them overwhelm us with negative emotions like fear and hopelessness, we end up like the carrot – soft and weak.
Eventually, we may grow so exhausted and despondent that we want to give up on our struggles. For example, we might contemplate quitting a job that’s challenging us or running away from a relationship that’s on the rocks. Or we might become dispirited and withdrawn – no longer enjoying the things in which we used to take pleasure, or even shutting ourselves away from them. For instance, in the face of professional and financial setbacks, a dejected husband might lose his appreciation for his wife and children and might stop spending time with them.
According to Mr. Jackson, this carrot-like response to adversity isn’t the natural consequence of being overpowered by external forces. Instead, it’s the result of the misguided belief that those forces are more powerful than us.
To overcome our challenges, we have to change our mind-set – and that’s precisely what Mr. Jackson tried to get Abe to do with his next two lessons.
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