My good friend Anthony Cooper wrote this up and sent it to me, and I wanted to share it on the blog. Coop's one of the more advanced thinkers I know, so it might be kind of tough for us weaker minds to get a grasp on his advanced thought processes, but it's worth trying. For more of Cooper's genius, you can follow him on Twitter @acoop13.
Everyone
has heard the cliche, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Most people have also heard the alternative saying that was brought to life in
the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall,
"When life gives you lemons, just say fuck the lemons and bail." I'm
of the opinion that there is a lot which can be gleaned from both phrases, but
neither necessarily has to be followed outright. If you are of the disposition from which
following the first makes you happy, so be it. If you prefer the second, wake
up and smell the roses.
Life's
gifts are beautiful in the sense that they under no circumstance should be
completely discarded, nor should they get in the way of what is truly important
in life; happiness. It's extremely easy to get caught up making lemonade,
thinking that the final product will bring a feeling of happiness. If you are one of those lucky enough to have
a job you love, then this may very well be the case. Odds are you, you aren't
in that position. I'm not saying don't
try in life, I'm a pretty big proponent of doing something right if you are
going to do it, just don't take yourself too seriously in your task. If you can't step back every once and a while
and laugh at yourself, or say "Ya know, this is cool and all, and I really
hope it works out, but if it doesn't, I've got friends, family, and a pretty
solid life that's all more important," then you run the risk of getting so
emotionally involved that anything less than perfection can ruin you. Or you just come off as a total clown
ass.
Bailing
on the life and the lemons is sort of "like [the previous] one's
fellow... it's sort of the exact opposite in fact of that - not an evil version
but just, you know..." And what I mean by this is that happiness comes
first, followed by realistic emotional implosion. It's super easy to be envious
of those who don't really do much out of high school, and are having the time
of their lives' rebelling against the system, ski bumming, popping molly,
anything really other than real world stuff.
Sooner or later, (for most people, there are obviously exceptions to
almost everything), reality is going to set in, the person in question is going
to look at their socially and economically stable peers, and are going to
realize the door to that room is on the other side of a marathon.
The point I'm trying to get at, is "when life gives you
lemons, jump up and down on them and listen to the squishy sound they make, and
laugh," because life is too short to take yourself too seriously. Appreciate
the gifts life throw's your way, make something of them, but at the end of the
day, make sure you are able to look back on what you've done and smile, "don't be no
cloud on a sunny day."
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