There are many invaluable life-lessons I have learned over the course of this year, 2015, an incredibly tough, challenging but deeply educational and rewarding time in my young life.  One of the more prominent lessons has been that old adage:

“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!”

In India, more than anywhere else on earth, the value of this teaching is immeasurable.  For in India, more than anywhere else on earth, life will very often give you lemons, even when what you clearly asked for were pineapples.  Even when you obviously have absolutely no use whatsoever for these bright yellow, bitter lemons that you never asked for.  Even when the white paint you requested for the interior of your new shop is in fact pink.  Yes pink, not white.  As can easily be seen given the already white shelves…

“No no madam, these shelves they are off-white!  The paint is pure white!”

“Um, no, it’s pink.  I’m looking inside the tub of paint and I’ve seen tubs of white paint before and this is most definitely NOT white!”

“No no madam…” 

You see what I mean?!  That right there was India handing out lemons.  So what did I do?  After a tiny tantrum (because after all my original colour scheme of blue and white with touches of soft cream has disappeared out the window) I took a deep breath, grabbed the lemons and made lemonade… and we went ahead with our new colour scheme – blue, white and soft pink.  And it’s not so bad.  It’s not what I wanted or planned, but it’s ok.  And it’s a lot better for my health than fighting it would have been.

Which is what I did repeatedly earlier this year when, after arriving to India with Alex, we discovered plate after plate of “lemons” – lemons instead of apples, lemons we’d never ordered, lemons that were too heavy to carry, lemons that fell and broke things, lemons that ended up costing us money we didn’t have, millions of bloody lemons that we really, REALLY didn’t want….

Life was launching lemons at us like tennis balls out of a machine and instead of grabbing a racquet to bat them away or even trying to catch them, I stood in the midst of the firing range and pointlessly argued and shouted and cried as lemon after lemon was hurled my way, smacking me in the thigh, or the chest or the face.

Life would have been a lot easier and a lot less painful if I’d stopped resisting so hard and started accepting those lemons.  Of course they weren’t what I wanted.  And sure some of them weren’t very nice lemons…  But there was nothing I could do about that.  As my older brother once told me in childhood,

“Want doesn’t always get!” 

As soon as I understood and accepted this, the sweeter and more delightful my life suddenly became!  I quite like the pink walls now.  It’s a nice, fresh colour for the shop.  You see?  I caught that lemon and I squeezed it til I got all the healthy, vitamin-C-enriched juice out of it.  And that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with wanting things a certain way, having specific preferences and desires and striving to attain them.  You just gotta remember, there’s a lot out there that you have zero control over and can’t always plan for (especially in India!).

Most of all, sometimes ‘problems’ can be blessings in disguise.  After all, lemons are actually very good for you!!

Love,

Ellie