Over the rainbow

The old fashion saying goes, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. What if you don't like lemonade. Yes, I know the saying is a proverbial phrase, it does not really mean lemons. What it simply means is when life gets tough, you think of the positive and make great things happen.

If I said think of a tough time in your life, and I gave you 15 seconds to remember one, what would that one tough time be? What was the outcome if that tough time is now behind you? Were you successful with overcoming the challenges in place? Now, take 15 more seconds and think of another time when life gave you a lemon. Which was the most challenging between the two you just came up with? Was the challenge involving finances? Was it about a friend, coworker, or family member?

Chances are your most challenging moment involved another person, and was not related to your finances. Why is that, you may ask? Every person on this spinning globe is of course independent, we all think different. Some of us are more forthcoming with issues that are present, others are willing to pass it off and just dropped the moment in the trash, awaiting for the pile to fill. We are hard to deal with. We expect everyone to act just like ourselves, we pride ourselves on our determination at the task on hand.

What we fail to realize is the importance of every person we encounter. That guy you accidentally cut off in traffic, that trash pile could be just about to over flow, and now he is raged. A typical mild mannered man, who is now face to face with you ready to swing his scrunched up fist. Maybe it was the lady at the store, who you happen to jump in line, not realizing she was next. Her trash, just added another sheet, but she is calm and moved on.

One of my favorite sayings from my days in retail is "Treat others as you would like to be treated". Respect is what Aretha Franklin was singing about. And in today's quickly moving world we all fail at respect on a weekly basis. Sometimes we do it on purpose, other times we accidentally say something or act in such as way which offenses another.

What was the purpose of this post? It was to make you think about your own personal feelings. Are you the cause of the moments that may be in someones trash? How can you ensure this does not happen anymore? The next time life gives you that lemon, you toss it over that rainbow and challenge yourself to be a true intelligent human.