How Do You Like Your Egg?

It takes longer to hard-boil a man or woman than an egg. — Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday. 

I’m drawn to Allen’s phrase and believe I know what he is trying to say, that it takes a long while to change the nature of a man or woman. He uses the phrase in the context of saying that the habits of thought can’t be changed overnight. What do you think Allen means?

I know how hard it is to change old habits whether it be eating, exercise, excuses, or environment. Change is attractive until it comes to actually doing it and we have to confront ingrained patterns.

I still believe in “seeking change,” one of my favorite phrases, but I’ve never been a hard-boiled egg kind of guy. I prefer my eggs over easy and my changes the same way.

How do you like your eggs?

About the author

Webb Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of The United States. His novels, When Men Betray, Ginger Snaps, A Game of Inches, The Eighteenth Green, and The East End are published by Beaufort Books and are available online or at your local bookstore. When Men Betray won one of the IndieFab awards for best novel in 2014. Ginger Snaps and The Eighteenth Green won the IPPY Awards Gold Medal for best suspense/thriller. His latest, “Light of Day” will be on the bookstands soon.

5 Comments +

  1. Obviously “scrambled” is very befitting of our times but I wish it was different. As we see daily now, the weather changes at a pace that is hard to comprehend based on what seemed like a much more predictable fashion in the last century.
    I would like to write it off to the expanded information we are exposed to now but that does not bear out statistically. Climate and weather have changed dramatically and are extreme threats for our children and grandchildren. Changes will be required but the political climate today is moving in a different direction. Climate change moving faster; attempts to rectify the situation moving slower does not bode well for the future!

  2. I agree with Davis! I find the earth’s changing climate and our “leaders” position of
    sticking their collective head in the sand even more frightening than Trump’s
    potential appointee to the Supremes!

  3. I like mine over medium – both parts cooked but not too much. Change is the only constant in our current times. The great leaders of our past and those of the future did and will embrace change and all the ambiguity that goes with it. Great leaders are what’s missing today. The dilemma for me is are they out there at all or does our system and current culture hold them back and neuter them.

    1. Very good question. I think they are, but your point about our system and culture is well taken. Webb.

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