When life gives you lemons...

Now, I'm sure all of us are familiar with the phrase:

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

I guess this phrase may mean different things to different groups of people. To some, this phrase means that we should seize every opportunity life gives us, that we should always stay optimistic in the face of adversities, that we should never give up. Why? Because no one likes lemons. Well, at least not the raw, sour ones. However, even when we are given something sour, we can turn it to something sweet, something enjoyable on a hot day, we can make lemonade!

However, this quote recently got me thinking, and I guess to some extent over-analysing everything about this simple, uncomplicated phrase. I thought: What if life gives you rotten lemons, or lemons that are not ripe? What do you do about these lemons then? Do you still make lemonade? Life's not as simple as this quote assumes it to be. Not all problems are problems of today, some problems are like weights from the past that we can't get off our shoulders, others are problems of the future that may/may not deserve our energy to be concern over. Well, the super nothing-better-to-do me has decided to break down these 3 conditions:

1. When life gives you rotten lemons

These rotten lemons signify problems from the past, they are like the test we failed last month, or the bad haircut we had when we were like 10 but is still haunting us during family gatherings where everyone looks back at the pictures from the past... No matter how hard it is to let go and forget about these problems, sometimes we have to do it and move on with our lives, because all of us deserve to be happy. Life is just too short for us to pounder over the past. Life, life is just like our hair. If we just keep on allowing it to grow and grow, the split ends will become longer and longer and our hair just won't be as nice and beautiful as it would have been if we were to just go to the hairdresser and cut off those split ends that have been dangling there for ages. So, when life gives you rotten lemons, you get rid of them, you throw them away. There's no point of keeping them anyways, all they're gonna do is just sit there and rot even more.

2. When life gives you lemons that have yet to ripe

These lemons are like problems that have not even become problems yet. They are like events that have yet to occur but we are already spending our energy thinking and worrying about. They are like that interview next week that we already think will fail, or that dress we haven tried on but already think won't fit. How would we know what we are already worrying about today, will even happen? Now, I admit that I am guilty of this. I always assume that things won't turn out well, that people will not like me, that I'll never succeed. It's not wrong for us to be pessimistic about things, sometimes it's beneficial as we won't be as disappointed when things don't turn out well as compared to those who stayed optimistic from the start. But, I guess, we sort of have to try and be patient (?) and wait for things to actually happen for us to worry about them. What's the point of pondering over something that has not even happened, anyways? When life gives you lemons that have yet to ripe, just leave them aside and who knows? They may have already gone rotten by the time you have a look at them again.

3. When life gives you perfect lemons

SQUEEZE!!! Not into other people's eyes and make the miserable, that's just rude. Squeeze them and make some lemonade, make the best out of every situation and spread positivity to the people around you! Everyone deserves to be happy, including yourself. The world would be a much better place if everyone were to be a little happier and there was a free-flow of lemonade and ice-cream that won't make us fat :)

x.