lemons to lemonade

You often hear people talk about making the best of a crappy situation and sometimes wonder, for example, “How the hell do I make the best out of being bitch slapped?”. Now, that’s a valid question…and the answer is, you don’t. In that particular situation, you have limited options: you could return the favor if you think you can take the slapper in a fist fight, or you could call the cops if you’re pretty sure you’re going to get your arse handed to you.

There are an almost infinite variety of crappy situations, and below are some of the relatively ‘nice’ ones that I have encountered in the past year:

• Being spit on by some stranger in the street
• Being stuck in a subway car when someone farts (though that actually inspired a poem I once wrote: “Ode to Train Farts”)
• Being puked on etc.

To be entirely honest, I still haven’t figured out how to turn being puked on or spit on into ‘lemonade’, however, I still believe anything can be made use of in a positive way if you open your mind to it.

I believe that the reason many people don’t turn their ‘lemons’ into ‘lemonade’ is because they don’t want to, not because they’re incapable of. And I believe the reason people don’t want to utilize their lemons is that they feel that by doing so, it somehow diminishes it’s importance. I want to tell you that making lemons into lemonade in no diminishes the importance you attach to your lemon.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting that it’s easy, say, to get over the loss of one of the most important people in your life. In fact, I don’t even encourage you to force yourself to get over that loss until you’re good and ready to– take your time and grieve. However, what I would encourage is that you harness all that emotional energy generated from your loss, and do something positive with it. Then you’ll have lemonade…lemonade you and your loved ones will be proud of.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or ideas you’d want to share.

(Note: It’s also said that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so if you figure out a way to make my lemons into lemonade, please let me know.)