What if I don’t want to make lemonade?

That old saying that everyone knows……  “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Sometimes you can’t make lemonade. What if you don’t have a pitcher, or sugar, or water, or a knife to cut the lemons with, or a spoon to mix it all together? Then you’re just stuck with the lemons. Now what do you do? You don’t make lemonade, that’s for sure.

Eat the lemons, hand ‘em back, throw them at someone else. But you’re sure not making lemonade unless you have all the necessary ingredients and tools. You’ve got lemons and that’s it.

I definitely don’t have the answers on how to deal with the lemons, because well, lemons are sour. Sometimes I leave them on the counter. Sometimes I carry them in a basket on my shoulders until they wear me down. Sometimes I pretend I don’t see the lemons. (not usually the most productive) Sometimes I distract myself from those lemons, find something else to concentrate on. Sometimes I ask someone else what to do with the lemons. And every once in a while I make lemonade, IF I have all the ingredients. Sometimes it takes a while to accumulate all the ingredients and tools to make lemonade. Sometimes you just have to wait out the lemons, hope they rot and you can throw them out.

Any way that you decide to deal with the lemons is up to you, but you have to know that lemons always end up on your plate or in your glass. You can’t ever escape the lemons, you’re going to have to deal with them, even when you don’t want to. Make lemonade, if you want to, but deal with the lemons.

Communication and Compromise

We all know, or should know, that communication is the key to any relationship. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Some people are not great communicators, to no fault of their own, that’s just how they’re wired. Some people are great communicators, almost to a fault. The rest of us, well the rest of us are stuck somewhere in between. We want to communicate, we want to talk things through, and we do to an extent but it may not always come out the way that it should. So you have to figure out different ways to communicate your message. Sometimes it’s the recipient of the communication, sometimes it’s the message itself, sometimes it’s the communicator.

How do you communicate with someone who communicates differently than you do? Do you give up on the communication all together? Do you try to force them into communicating the way that you do? Do you try to force yourself to communicate the way they do? Or do you try to find some common ground of communication, something you both can relate to and understand?

Most people would say that there’s no compromise if there’s no communication. But is that necessarily true? I think that both people can be compromising in their own way and not necessarily getting the message across to the other person. I think two people can be having the same conversation without actually having the conversation if they understand each other. Ultimately I think that actions speak louder than words. I think that you can communicate with someone by showing them that you understand what they’re saying.

One thing that people misperceive is that communication is not always verbal or written. Actually a lot of communication is physical or visual. Words themselves are not always necessary. Find a different way of communicating in your relationships than what you are already using. Whether its with your significant other, your siblings, your parents, your friends, or the general public. Try out different methods of communication with different people. I think we will all find that one method of communication is not always successful with each individual person.