The game of life, you have all heard of the expression “When life gives you lemons, make, lemonade.” It is a proverbial phrase that is used to encourage people to stay, optimistic, and to keep fighting in the face of, adversity, or misfortune. Lemon suggests sourness and difficulty in life; making, lemonade, with lemons that is being handed out to you turns the whole sour episode into something sweet, positive, and desirable. In, the game of life, you have to play with the cards you are dealt.
When the British colonized India they built a golf course in Calcutta, and they had a problem with the, monkeys. The, monkeys, would pick up the balls the golfers hit and put it somewhere else.
They tried to solve the problem by building a fence around the course, but of course, monkeys, climb; so that didn’t work.
Then they tried to lure the, monkeys, away with bananas; but only some were lured away, and others weren’t.
Plus, all the, monkeys, for miles around would show up to feed on their favorite food, so that didn’t work either.
Finally, they accepted defeat and changed the rules of the game. The new rules had the golfers play the ball from wherever the, monkeys, dropped it.
This is a great story to illustrate, the game of life. We always have to play the ball where life drops it. We would all love to be able to place the ball where we think it should be, but we can't.
This is a strange story to depict the mantra “if life gives you lemons make lemonade.” We don’t always get sugar and spice and everything that is nice, most of the time things don’t work out the way we planned and that is, the game of life.
turn a negative experience into something positive
make something sweet out of something bitter
embrace life in whatever form it comes
look on the bright side of life, every cloud has a silver lining!
My favorite show is Private Practice and Addison made a statement on the show that with this saying:
“We make plans but God make other plans, he has the last word”
Your desire to have a baby could be so strong that you pray every day, you dream of your baby every day; you think of your life with your baby every day; but it’s been 5 years and you are not pregnant. The doctors say you are infertile. Time to play the ball where the monkey dropped it and either adopt a child, foster a child, look for a surrogate mother or start fertility treatments.
Another example is to practice, the law of detachment. This law states that you should only be attached to your end goal not the journey. If your goal is to retire and travel the world that is your destination. The journey could take you around that golf course several times back and forth, sometimes you would be stuck in the sand box, sometimes you will hit the ball in the lake, but if you keep playing you will eventually get to the 18th hole.
Forrest Gump said it best, life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get so, if life gives you lemons make lemonade.
Although I was devastated when I was fired from my job, I used the time to go back to college and get my degree. I now have a better job! This is an example of, the game of life, making, lemonade, out of lemons.
My grandfather lost his job due to the coronavirus, but he decided to keep busy and start his own business. He says, “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
Another anecdote for, the game of life, when one door shuts, another one opens; so become optimistic.
Making, lemonade, out of the lemons in life, my hope is that you look at this moment in time as a learning lesson in, the game of life, and try to find the sweetness of the moment.
Juice and strain the lemons. There a couple of tricks for getting the most juice out of your lemons (rolling them, slicing them lengthwise, roasting them), but my new favorite “juicing hack” is to actually crush the whole lemons using my stand mixer. Seriously! Here’s how you do it: Quarter the lemons and put them in the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Use low speed to squeeze the lemons, then strain the juice directly into a measuring cup.
Use the lemon juice to dissolve the sugar. Many modern, lemonade, recipes call for making a simple syrup — sugar and water boiled together — for sweetening summer, lemonade, but if you stir the sugar directly into the lemon juice you can skip the simple syrup and get to, lemonade, faster — no heat required.
Add cold water to taste. Since the lemon juice dissolves the sugar, we can go straight from lemon juice to cold water and ice and serve the, lemonade, straight away.
