When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade!

One of my drinks of choice is Lemonade. Doesn't matter if it's raspberry, strawberry, peach, or just good ol' pure lemonade. So if life was as simple as taking the sour parts and turning them into one of my favorite things, I'd be good to go.

Unfortunately, this silly little saying is a lot easier to say than to follow. And I'm not really sure how to turn the frustrations of everyday life into something that I enjoy. In fact, most of the time when I'm given lemons in life, I resort to one of the following defense techniques:

a. Ignore it and hope it goes away.

b. Cover up the reality of the situation by pretending that everything is fine.

c. Try to out run it.

Or when all else fails, I resort to d. Play Rip Van Winkle and hope that I can just sleep for the next 20 years... I have yet to master this one obviously. :)

While these methods have been semi-successful, I'm in the process of learning that there is a better way to handle the lemons that life is dishing to me. What happens to a lemon if it is left untouched and untaken care of? It eventually ferments, rots and turns to nothing but garbage. There's really no way to salvage it once it's reached this point.

So, instead of ignoring, covering up, out running, or sleeping off life's lemons, I'm learning that it's easier in the long run to face them today - before they have time to ferment, rot, and turn into nothing but garbage. I may not get lemonade out of them, but at least I won't be stuck with a pile of rubbish.

Maybe the saying should be something more a long the lines of:

"When life gives you lemons, do something with them before they rot. And maybe if you're lucky, you'll end up with lemonade."