On Making Lemonade

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I’m pretty sure you have heard the saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Someone possibly told you this as a way to encourage you in a tough situation, like when your boss tells you he needs you to work some extra hours, and you’re like, “What about a r…”

“Juan, I need that work done ASAP.” your boss screams furiously before leaving for his evening date with a young 20-something woman.

The thing is that these situations require action on your part and, well, you have to make lemonade with them for some reason. So, let’s see what this is all about.

1. What “making lemonade” means

After some googling, I realized that “making lemonade when life gives you lemons” means you should strive to make the best out of adverse situations. It is like when you order coffee at the café and the barista forgets you exist. Well, you should take that moment to reflect on the deep meaning of existence, and acknowledge that maybe the barista is right, it is an illusion as is time; besides, you don’t need coffee to survive, and maybe they don’t need your money: there are a lot more illusions willing to give their money in exchange for the liquid.

Maybe a husband could also apply this advice when he forgets a simple task his spouse entrusts him and now she’s coming back home, opens the door, and he realizes at that very moment he had to do something “for her.” It’s an opportunity to look into her eyes and tell her, “Hey, babe.” She looks back into his’ with an interrogative expression. “You know I love you.” He says.

“Did you forget to feed the fish again, Jose?” She reacts hysterically.

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The point is that this is a good moment for the husband to exercise his communication skills, which are highly needed in these particular kinds of situations, to deal with his wife’s consuming rage, and make her unleash everything she’s been accumulating inside in 25 years of marriage with a snail. Eventually, they will come to a resolution and agree to new terms of the relationship, which will never be met.

2. Interpretation

I have to confess that I had a different view of what the phrase meant until five minutes ago. For me, it was about when life gives you a tough job you are supposed to dedicate to, like being a teacher. I mean, who wants to be a teacher? I can tell you, only the naïve. Because when you are in college it’s all like, “You have so much potential for teaching.” “I love how you managed the classroom.” “You’ll do just fine in school.” Then when you get to the real thing, it’s all craziness: You get Jorgito doing back flips from one desk to another, Valentina filming a Tik Tok of how to cut her hair with scissors, Pedrito climbing on the roof saying he’s Spiderman, all while you’re trying to make sure they understand 2 + 2 = 4.

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Now, seriously, I think teaching is one of those professions that should be more valued in terms of monetary gain because dedicated teachers really do some superhuman stuff out there, starting with the planning. Do you know how long it takes to plan a 1.5-hour lesson? That thing takes decades! And what about the ones who manage to keep our children calm? That’s got to be a miracle. They’re really miracle workers.

3. Things that are wrong with the saying

Let’s get to some things I believe are wrong with “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” First, you don’t make lemonade just with lemons, Okay? You need some water and sugar. Therefore, If you don’t have these ingredients, it’s just impossible to make a good classic lemonade. So, that tells us we should go look for the water, get some sugar, and also mix all of it in a good mixing bowl with the right amount of each ingredient, or else, we run the risk of failing the lemonade gods with some water with a taste to lemon, or any other possible form of lemonade mediocrity.

Another thing is you can do some other things with lemons, right? Like if you don’t want to have lemonade, maybe you can use their juice on some fish or maybe squeeze some on someone’s eyes as a means of self-defense. You can plant some of their seeds and get even more of them. Then sell them all and buy oranges.

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Conclusions

Maybe you have more ideas of what to do with lemons. So, regarding the meaning of all of this, you don’t really expect me to interpret it, do you? I’m going to leave it to you to come up with practical or more complex insights on how we can interpret this metaphor and all its possibilities.

For now, to wrap this all up, I have to say it’s been interesting for me to learn about this saying better because I’ve realized that I actually had a particular application of the general meaning of the metaphor. I now know this expression can be applied to any difficulty in life.

I guess I thought it was related to work because making lemonade is like business, right? When someone says “I’m going to make lemonade” I instantly think of the typical American scene set in a suburb and the stand there, reading, “Lemonade,” and a bunch of kids trying to take the first steps in the business world by selling you some outrageously overpriced beverage. But, well, it applies to other things as well.

I guess the phrase implies that there is a problem with the lemon in that it’s sour. That’s the only way I can see lemons represent issues. Otherwise, what do people have against lemons? They’re cute, green in my home country, yellow in the rest of the world, and they're useful for many things. They’re reportedly one of the healthiest fruits, so maybe someone has to rethink this proverb, just saying.

Anyway, thank you so much if you made it this far. I hope you’ve had a good time. See you in the next one.