When Life Gives you Lemons?

You make lemonade or Lemon Pie.

Children or young adults might not understand this yet but every age group has problems, just different ones.

So, for example, in my own life my 20s and my 40s were the hardest years for me to survive psychologically. And in your 20s if you aren't making it psychologically there is a tendency to self destruct physically before 25 or 30. And it isn't just traditional ways of suicide that do this. There is always driving too fast in your car maybe drunk or on drugs and there is always joining the military and volunteering for a war zone. These are also ways young people consciously or unconsciously commit suicide too.

And my 60s so far are the hardest physically to survive but not necessarily psychologically. No, that was the trouble in my 20s and 40s. But now I realize every moment is a gift and each moment could be my last. So, because I'm grateful for each moment of life I could live to be 100 or 500 or beyond that even. But, without my gratitude for each moment if I ever started to panic it would be all over in a matter of days, weeks or months and probably less than years.

So, if you want to live to be older than 50 don't panic because that will give you a stroke or a heart attack and it will be over then for you for good.

You might ask why was my 20s and my 40s the hardest? My 20s is easier for me to explain. I realized that because I had had childhood epilepsy and whooping cough that though I was very intelligent I wasn't going to be able to impress my parents like my cousin did who knew at 12 he wanted to become a lawyer and then got a full scholarship to USC and then NYU law school. This wasn't in the cards for me and I knew it. Next, the girl(s) I feel in love with (2) I didn't really understand I was in love with both of them really (that wouldn't have made any sense to a 20 year old then. So, when I broke up with one at 19 and the other at 21 because the one I broke up with at 21 didn't want to have children if we married and I did. So, even though I did the right thing to break up with her because I saw no sense at all to be married to anyone without children, I couldn't emotionally cope with having broken up with either of them and I was suicidal for about 4 years until I got together with my first wife and had a son. So, my 20s were awful except for having my son born and then I was a single father at age 29.

It wasn't that a whole lot of amazing things didn't happen in my 20s, they did. But, most of them were not what I expected to be doing in my 20s for my parent's sake. So, I had to get beyond all my parents expectations for me and learn to live for myself and my son. Only then could my life make enough sense to me to decide I wanted to go on living.  I am still haunted now by the unrealistic expectations of my youth and I don't think I'm alone in this. I think everyone goes through one kind of hell or another in their 20s. And if they don't go through it then they will never grow up until life makes them kiss the curb at some time during their lives.

Some people have a difficult childhood and so their 20s are wonderful. I have seen this too. But, most people who have had a really great childhood have an awful 20s and often don't survive their 20s as a result. I survived only by the skin of my teeth and many who went through what I did didn't make it to 30 that I knew growing up.

So, what do you do when life gives you lemons?
Answer: You either make lemonade or Lemon pie
Because if you don't you soon likely will be dead.
In the end I only survived because I did what you have to do.
I became an opportunist and a father and raised my 3 kids
and 2 step kids and 2 God Daughters and enjoyed the whole thing
and became affluent in the process and traveled the world and I'm doing that still and will
as long as I can.