You’ve heard it before, “When life hands you lemons, Make lemonade”. It’s an oft used saying, the origin attributed to a variety of people.
“When fate hands us a lemon, let’s try to make a lemonade”
-Dale Carnegie
“If you have a lemon, make lemonade.”
-Howard Luck Gossage
“If life deals you lemons made lemonade”
-Proverb
Wikipedia says:
A popular quote by Dale Carnegie is “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, meaning that one should make the best of bad situations.
Even Forrest Gump is attributed with using the phrase.
For me, today, the issue is truly about making the best of the situation. The situation that pertains to me is a series of occurrences that are not necessarily bad, just not ones I expected to be in.
I had planned to be on the road today, driving from Kelowna to Vancouver to meet my Mom so I could fly with her to Tucson. Unfortunately the arrival of snow this morning preempted that plan.
And I guess I should clarify and say it’s not really the snow or inclement weather that caused me to change my plans, more that I take events like that as signs, indications that perhaps I should rethink my schedule and go to plan B. It wouldn’t be the end of the world after all, it gives me more time with my daughter and grandson.
Not only did the snow flurries give me pause to think, the realization this morning I forgot my passport at home also gave me a start. It was like someone poked me with a stick and said, “Hey, take a breath, you should really think about whether you were supposed to make this leg of the trip on this day”. So I did, I took a breath, and decided to leave for Vancouver tomorrow instead. My passport would be mailed to me here, I could renew my car insurance, and with some luck the weather will improve and tomorrow will be the day.
The pause in my day also allowed me to take a deep breath and revisit what was important to me. Sure I very quickly thought ‘let’s make lemonade’ and while I was pondering what that meant I also noticed a vase of beautiful yellow Tulips on my daughters table. Yellow lemons, yellow tulips. Hmmm, things that make you go Hmmm.
They are very pretty, and if there are no other obvious blessings to deferring this part of the trip I will accept that at least I was able to appreciate the beauty of nature for even a moment. I squeezed the lemons, and got lemonade for the soul.
