WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE

Pic.: Chetna Shetty

I had first come across the famous quote - ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’, in Dale Carnegie’s classic – ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.’ He had credited it to Julius Rosenwald.

Obviously, lemons are bitter and sour and lemonade is sweet. So, the line reminds us:  When life gives you bitterness and sourness, please don’t complain. Instead, learn to make a sweet recipe out it. As a young-struggler in his twenties – jobless and worried – I had found a lot of solace in the line… It had filled me with hope and courage.

Dale Carnegie, also, had introduced me to one of the most inspiring essays ever written – ‘A Message to Garcia’ by Elbert Hubbard.  Many say, that it was Hubbard who had first penned the line - “When life gives you lemons…” in the obituary to his dwarf-actor-friend, Marshall P. Wilder. He had written:

"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."

Ever since then, I have been hugely inspired to live life, making the most of it – making lemonade out of the lemons life had given me - by scores of men and women, whose lives had come to them with mighty challenges. Their quiet acceptance and grace - and their steely grit and infectious zest - had filled me with hope and fired me with grit… Yes, some of these souls were even little children!

Nine-year-old Ezra Frech is one of them… I had first heard about this amazing kid when he was nominated to be the ‘Sports Kid of the year-2014’. It had made me curious to know more about this kid; and, honestly, I was left a lot humbled by the way he had chosen to live his life… His story is worth reading and listening to. When the American TV host, Ellen, shared the inspiring story of Erza in one of her episodes, it made the nine-year-old, literally, a beacon of hope for millions world over!

Today, Suman, a friend of mine, had shared a video of Erza on Ellen show. Suddenly, the little boy’s smile, confidence and grace overwhelmed me, all over again…

I thought, I would write something about Erza…  Perhaps, you might have missed his story… And, yes, you might have missed the lemons-and-lemonade line, too…

Or, perhaps, you might have forgotten about them, both… Like I had!

GERALD D’CUNHA