When Life Gives You Lemons, Choose To Make Orange Juice
Sometimes life does not go as planned, or desired, or as we dreamt and hoped it would be.
Sometimes circumstances remove the people, the places, and the things from our lives we thought would always be there.
Sometimes those unfortunatilities (yep, made that up) misalign with the expected celebration and joy of holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays.
We can choose to focus on suffering, affliction, and loss. After all, life gave us these lemons; we did not ask for them. Sure, there are days where life’s lemons seem to be the only things available to us. Reminders of the things we do not have are all around us and understandably bring with them undesirable feelings. So naturally, it is understandable we strive to find ways to be okay with not being okay. Being okay with the fact there will be times we are not okay is an important part of life. For some, we have come to believe acceptance means surrendering to that lot we were given and simply finding a way to co-exist with life’s lemons for the rest of our days, not okay becoming the new baseline, the new norm.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! Right?
But what if there could be more to life? What if acceptance really meant that even though certain moments, days, anniversaries might be harder than others, we can also give ourselves permission to experience something different than just those days? What if despite the abundance of lemonade we have learned to become accustomed to, we chose something else, something different?
Sure, I took 10 minutes today to feel self-pity, to feel hurt and loss, to feel loneliness, to feel angry, to feel like I am not good enough, to feel unworthy of the laughs and love so many others will feel and share today. It is important to allow ourselves to feel these feelings rather than simply try to ignore them. Feel what you feel whenever you are feeling it. But instead of allowing our emotions to have unlimited free reign, instead of simply accepting the idea all that is left for us is free refills of lemonade, what might life look like if we decided on something different? What if we pulled ourselves out of that space by focusing on the love we do have in the family and friends in our life? What if we forced ourselves to focus on gratitude for the things we do have rather than the grief of the things we do not? What if we made our today different, more special, and more full of love (even if only self-love) than yesterday? What if rather than waking up feeling alone yet another morning, today I made myself breakfast in bed with a little note—”To Me ~ Luv You, Kid… ~ From Me”?
If we want today to be different, we must make it different by doing something different.
Cook a special meal or buy a special microwavable dinner for those holidays and watch a favorite holiday show
Take a different route to work
Talk to one person different today
Try a different activity
Watch a different show
Listen to a different genre of music
No matter what life takes away, no matter what dream has not come true yet, no matter what people, places, and things we think should be in our lives but life has taken a different path; life can never take away our ability and responsibility to choose how we want our outlook to be, the perspective we want to have, and our freedom to make today the best today that we can.
If you want today to be different, if you want holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries to be different from other days, then go do just one thing differently. Go make just one thing about today different from yesterday, circumstances or not. In an abundance of lemons and lemonade, choose orange juice. You deserve it!