“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
While I have not stumbled into a sour alignment. I am trying to turn what first seemed negative, into a positive. I am working to trying to sell my images through a christian stock photography supplier. In a review with my agent he suggested that for the current market, my images tend to be too staged, busy and dramatic.
Susan, my dear wife/muse/soulmate, loves to laugh at my new motto that I am working real hard to be simple. It is my version of trying to turn a sour thing into something sweet. Somehow it seemed fitting to start with the sour lemon.
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. “Lemons” in this expression is used in the informal sense of the word, to indicate an unfortunate or inadequate situation, a meaning which probably stems from the sour and acidic taste of unsweetened lemon. “Lemonade” on the other hand, is a sweetened form of this same acerbic fruit, and so in the context of this expression, conveys the potential for pleasure and opportunity in seemingly bad situations.
The phrase was initially coined by Christian anarchist writer Elbert Hubbard in a 1915 obituary he penned and published for dwarf actor Marshall P. Wilder. The obituary, entitled The King of Jesters, praises Wilder’s optimistic attitude and achievements in the face of his disabilities:
“He was a walking refutation of that dogmatic statement, Mens sana in corpore sano. His was a sound mind in an unsound body. He proved the eternal paradox of things. He cashed in on his disabilities. He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand.
Although the expression was coined by Hubbard, many modern authors attribute the expression to Dale Carnegie who used it in his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.
““Life handed him a lemon,
As Life sometimes will do.
His friends looked on in pity,
Assuming he was through.
They came upon him later,
Reclining in the shade
In calm contentment, drinking
A glass of lemonade.”
Try to work on your lemons today. ††† en theos ††† jimwork
Shades of Gray - Denison TX 