When Life Hands You Lemons, Sometimes You Make Something Other Than Lemonade

Life seldom presents you with only one choice.Photo by Tania Melnyczuk on Unsplash

There we were, sitting in the living room, chilling on the couch with the cats. The weekend was drawing to a close, and we were going to watch the Sunday night animated shows we enjoy.

About five minutes in, the power goes out. That’s odd. Why is the power out?

We look outside. Apart from the lamp on the side street beside the house being out, everything else appears to be working normally. All the neighbors appear to have power. It’s a beautiful, clear night with low to no wind. We go into the basement. No breakers have been tripped. We have autopay set up for this bill, so that’s not it.

We notify the power company that we have no power. And then we wait.

For some reason, this spikes my ire. I find myself getting annoyed and feeling fidgety. Sitting still is not going well; I’m about ready to jump out of my skin. Why the hell, in 2025, on a perfectly lovely night, am I suddenly without power?

It never ceases to amaze me how many things in my life rely on electricity. And just to add insult to injury, we are still waiting on permission to operate (i.e., turn on) our solar and its backup battery.

It took some doing, but when life handed me this lemon, I couldn’t make lemonade of it. But I realized I had choices to make other things from this lemon.

Choices and decisions under stress and duress

Life frequently hands you snotty tissues, throws your curve balls, presents unexpected potholes on your path, and offers you shit sandwiches to eat. The vast majority of these are utterly, completely, and totally out of your control.

I could do jack shit about my power being out, save checking if the problem was with our system or notifying the power company. Which we did. After that, the limited choices for what to do next were on me.

Get angry about it? Panic about it? Shout, scream, and give in to my baser, less desirable impulses? Or pause, reflect, find alternatives, and work the problem?

I found the power brick I take camping with sufficient charge to power up our phones and my eBook. My wife found the emergency lantern. We poured water for the cats (since they have fountains that run on electricity and thus were out).

Then we found a deck of cards and played card games for an hour. She went to bed while I used my phone to play some games and converse online with a friend.

I could have chosen to freak out about this thing that I had NO control over whatsoever. And I wanted to. But instead, I chose to find an alternative. I didn’t make lemonade from the lemon life tossed to me. Instead, I think I zested the lemon to add brightness to the situation.

Life hands you new and different things all the time

About three hours after we lost power, it was restored. I don’t know what happened yet, but based on observing the crew they sent to look into our problem, I suspect the issue had to do with the new transformer that was installed about 6 months ago when the old one blew up.

One thing I noticed, as I started to feel the negativity and ire trying to overtake me in this situation, was where that was coming from. It was a little brain weasel in the back of my head telling me this was unfair. Everyone else in the neighborhood has power and had a normal evening, so why the hell couldn’t we? Is this another sign of my lack of worth, deserving, and the like?

Cooler thoughts prevailed. I recognized that this was irrational, emotional, and based on beliefs and values that don’t actually ring true to me. I know that life hands you new and different things all the time. Why? Because of change.

Change is the one and only constant in the universe. Nothing, and I mean nothing, escapes change. Microscopic or macroscopic; animal, vegetable, or mineral; tangible or intangible; everything everywhere is subject to and impacted by change. And the vast majority of it is outside of anyone’s control.

Photo by Benjamin BEGIN on UnsplashWhat do I do with these lemons I didn’t want?

Life will give you lemons from time to time, no matter who you are. Sometimes you find yourself simply overwhelmed by them. Other times, you make lemonade. But maybe sometimes you zest them, squeeze them over apples to keep them from browning, or throw them in protest. That’s a matter of choices and decisions you get to make.

How do you make them? Active conscious awareness. Mindfulness is how you look inside yourself to see what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, the positivity or negativity of your approach, and what actions you take from there. Hence, you choose — when life hands you those lemons — what, if anything, you will do with them.

This is a matter of positivity because when it comes to what you can and do control in this life, it’s all about you and your mindset/headspace/psyche. Ultimately, you control your mind, body, and spirit. Hence, when life gives you lemons, you can choose to use them positively or negatively. Ultimately, that’s how you become empowered to actively live your most genuine, desirable life.

Finally, I’d like to express some gratitude. I’m grateful to my wife for allowing me to work out with her my near-freak-out. She understands anxiety far better than I do, and I appreciate that. I’m also grateful to the power company for getting here reasonably quickly and restoring our power. Lastly, thank you for letting me share this.

Choosing what to do with the lemons that life gives you isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge the choices and decisions you can make via active conscious awareness, you can work with the lemons life hands you, even if you aren’t feeling like making lemonade. Knowing that you get to choose and decide how to react to unexpected life happenings, you gain the power to control the only thing you truly can — your mindset/headspace/psyche self — and from there live your best, most authentic life.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself opens the way for a positive approach and attitude via your actions. This can lead to realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself, here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you and empower them as well. That is an amazing conduit to help reason to overcome fear in the collective consciousness.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the six-hundred-twelfth (612) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published fiction and non-fiction.

The post When Life Hands You Lemons, Sometimes You Make Something Other Than Lemonade appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.