"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"

We've all heard this phrase countless times, sometimes we're the ones telling it ourselves or to someone else.

Although this phrase sounds like an appealing positive mantra to recite whenever things are crappy or when going through a very shitty day; I wonder if it's also one of those self-help crap that we tell ourselves when we don't want to accept or deal with our realities?

Is this some kind of misguided attempt to erase all our troubles? Do we just want to believe that we can make everything better? Are we trying to run away from reality because it's too real and painful? Or are we just tired of doing the work?

Remember that time when you were sick and needed to take some not coated bitter pill, and someone thought it was a great idea to crush it on a spoon, add sugar and water to it so that the sugar would tone down, or whatever it is they thought it would do to lessen that bitter taste? I hated that! It just came down to them breaking it in half then I would swallow with chugs of water.💪💪 Because I quickly learned that the spoon, sugar, and water thing ... does not help but trigger my very rare gag reflexes, and the pill would be even bitter than when swallowed whole. I know people who'd say, "child, these pills are bitter but they'll to help you feel better"! I like those people! 

I am a realist, so I will tell you this, "When life gives you lemons, eat them! Now you think I am being cruel or unrealistic, hey I won't eat lemons by choice! So let's move past the literal meaning and continue exploring this metaphor.

Life is filled with loads of imperfections; so granted, the road is bumpy, rough, scary, and you name it. You know what else life is filled with? People! Messed up people even! That includes you by the way. There's a long documented history of people that has a common pattern, something that comes almost naturally, hell, even you are thinking about doing it right now! People have always sought to challenge and counter the circumstances surrounding them. We are natural fighters, or else we would not have electricity, technology, for instance, and pointing out the obvious; you wouldn't be reading this post!

Bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is feeling the fear, the doubt, the insecurity, and deciding that something else is more important.

— Mark Manson (@IAmMarkManson) August 28, 2019

So why seek to numb the greatest weapon we have against adversity? We have to listen to the tune and dance to it. Look at the lemons and say, "you are mine, and I'm going to chew every part of you!" because they will give you tough skin, they'll make you more resilient! As Mark Manson says, "The willingness to be different, an outcast, a pariah, all for the sake of one's own values. The willingness to stare failure in the face and shove your middle finger back at it. The people who don't give a fuck about adversity or failure or embarrassing themselves or shitting the bed a few times. The people who just laugh and then do what they believe in anyway. Because they know it's right. They know it's more important than they are, more important than their own feelings and their own pride and their own ego."

If we ever want to have justice for everyone, gender equality, gender pay equality, justice for women, alleviate discriminations of all sorts; we cannot always expect to have good things happen to us! In fact, if we stop fighting problems, we will lose the need to exist! And for us to keep fighting, there have to be problems with different proportions. We are made to challenge our surroundings, make them better than before, and then challenge them again, and again, until we die! And hopefully, before we die, we have helped, inspired, supported, and guided others to keep on fighting to become better and make lives better than they were. We all know this too well, that without problems there will be no need for innovations or inventions, therefore life would be so different maybe even less fruitful.

In order for us to become a guide for those behind us, we have to embrace both the sad and happy moments of life. We have to be willing to get our hands a little dirty and do the work knowing that the work is beyond us, the sacrifice is worth it. Our predecessors definitely did something which has landed us in the places we're at right now. Our predecessors definitely did or didn't do something that's why our society is filled with malice, discrimination, injustices against women, and all other derogatory instances. Because the truth is, as women in this generation, life has handed us lemons! The real question is, are we eating our lemons or are we dodging them? Are we feeling the injustices done to women or are we finding excuses based on our different cultures to try and justify the issues at hand in an attempt to feel less pain, less anguish, less concerned, less involved?

Now, I hope this was enough to at least get you thinking in a different way. Maybe it even makes you wanna write a better article addressing the same issue! Because maybe it takes reading an article that has been poorly written about ... oh I'll let you decide what this article is about, for you to stand up and play your part in making your surroundings better than they were before you got there! We are the change that we need!!

There is no such thing as change without pain, no growth without discomfort. That’s why it is impossible to become someone new without first grieving the loss of who you used to be. #EverythingIsFucked

— Mark Manson (@IAmMarkManson) August 17, 2019