Chapter 11 Turn Sour Lemons Into Sweet Lemonade

The great psychologist Alfred Andel, after spending his whole life studying the undeveloped retention ability of human beings, believed that one of the most wonderful characteristics of human beings is "the power to change the negative into positive". While I was writing this book, I went to the University of Chicago to ask President Rob Rogers how to be happy.He told me: "I've been trying to follow a piece of advice that was given to me by the late Trias Rosenvo, chairman of Sears. He said, 'If you only have lemons, Just make a glass of lemonade.'” What the great educator did was the exact opposite of what a fool would do.If one of those fools finds out that fate only offers him a lemon, he will give himself up and say, "I'm doomed! This is fate! I don't have a chance!" Then, he curses the world and wallows in self-pity.And when a wise man gets a lemon, he says, "What can I learn from this unfortunate incident? How can I improve my situation, and how can I make this lemon into a glass of lemonade?"

In the 20th century, Harry Emerson Fosdick repeated this sentence: "The great part of happiness is not enjoyment, but victory." Yes, this kind of victory comes from a kind of elation, from a kind of achievement The feeling also comes from the fact that we can turn lemons into lemonade. I visited a happy farmer in Virginia who even turned a "poisonous lemon" into lemonade.When he bought the farm, he was very depressed.The land the farmer had bought was so poor that he could neither grow fruit nor raise pigs, but only poplars and rattlesnakes.Then he came up with a great idea, he turned what he had into an asset and put those rattlesnakes to good use.What he did was surprising, since he started a business of canning rattlesnake meat.When I went to see him a few years ago, I found out that nearly 20,000 tourists come here every year to see his rattlesnake farm.His business is doing great now.I saw the venom taken from the mouths of his rattlesnakes being sent to major pharmaceutical companies to make snake venom serum, and I saw cans made of rattlesnake meat being shipped to customers all over the world.I have also seen rattlesnake skins sold at great prices for women's shoes and purses.I also bought a postcard with a picture of the place on it and I mailed it at the local post office.Now the village has been renamed Virginia Rattlesnake Village to commemorate the man who turned poisonous lemons into sweet lemon juice.

Someone once said: "The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your income. Any fool will do it. What really matters is to capitalize on your losses. That takes intelligence, and This is the difference between a wise man and a fool.” As I have traveled back and forth across the country time and time again, I have seen many men and women demonstrate their "ability to turn a negative into a positive." For the past 35 years, I have been teaching adult education tutoring classes in New York City.I find that the biggest regret of many adults is that they never went to college, and they seem to think that not having a college education is a major flaw.In fact, this view is not necessarily true, because I know thousands of successful people, they didn't even graduate high school, but they still achieved success.I often tell the story of Al Smith to my students.

Al Smith's family was very poor, so he didn't even finish primary school.His father passed away, and his father was buried only by collecting donations from his father's friends.After his father died, his mother worked 10 hours a day at an umbrella factory, bringing some work home until 11 p.m. Al, who grew up in this environment, once participated in an amateur theater performance held by the local church.He enjoyed the show so much that he decided to learn oratory, and this ability led him into politics, and at the age of 30 he was elected to the New York State Assembly.Yet he was so unprepared for the job, he didn't even know what it was all about.He started working on the long and complicated bills that he had to vote on.However, these bills seemed to him to be written in Indian script, and he couldn't understand them at all.

When he was elected to the state legislature's finance committee, he was surprised and worried because he had never even opened a bank account.When he was elected to the Forestry Commission, he was equally surprised and worried because he had never been in a forest.He told me that he was so nervous that he almost resigned from Parliament, but he was ashamed to admit his defeat to his mother.In desperation, he resolved to study hard for 16 hours a day, turning that lemon he knew nothing about into a glass of lemonade full of knowledge.Eventually, he succeeded, going from a local politician to a national figure and making himself so good that The New York Times called him "New York's most popular citizen."

Of course, hard work pays off, and when Al Smith started this self-educating political class 10 years later, he became the most vocal voice on all things New York state government.He was elected governor of New York State 4 times, which is an unprecedented record. In 1918, he became the Democratic presidential candidate, and six universities, including Columbia and Harvard, presented honorary degrees to the man who hadn't even graduated elementary school. Al Smith once told me that none of this would be possible if he hadn’t been working 16 hours a day turning the negative into the positive.

It can be said that the more I study those who achieve, the more I feel that a very large number of them are successful because they had some defects in the beginning that hindered their development. , thus prompting them to redouble their efforts and get more rewards.As William James said: "Our imperfections help us unexpectedly." Once on a trip, I met a man who had broken his legs. His name was Fordson.I met him in the elevator of a hotel in Atlantic City, Georgia.As I entered the elevator, I saw this very happy looking man with two broken legs sitting in a wheelchair in the corner of the elevator.When the elevator stopped at exactly the floor he was going to, he cheerfully asked me if I could make room for him to get out."I'm sorry to trouble you like this," he said, with a very warm smile on his face as he said this.

As I stepped out of the elevator, I kept thinking about the happy disabled person.So I decided to go to him and ask him to tell me his story. He smiled and told me, "It happened in 1929, and I cut down a whole bunch of walnut branches to make trestles for the beans in my vegetable garden. I put those walnut branches on my Ford. On the drive back I was on my way home when suddenly a tree branch slid onto my car and got stuck in the engine while the car was making a sharp turn. The car went off the road and hit a tree. I hurt my spine and both legs Disabled. I was only 24 when it happened, and I haven't walked a step since then."

Ford was sentenced to life in a wheelchair when he was 24 years old.I asked him why he was able to accept this cruel fact so bravely. He said that he did not have the courage to do so at the time, and his heart was full of resentment and sadness, complaining about the injustice of fate.Of course, although he complains day by day, time will not stop for him for a minute, and it is still passing year by year.In the end, he found that complaining didn't solve anything, it just made things worse.He said: "I finally realized that everyone was nice and polite to me, so I should at least be polite to others."

I asked him if, after all these years, he still felt that his accident was a great misfortune.He was quick to say, "No, I'm even glad I had that experience now." After he got over the remorse he felt at the time, he said, he started living in a completely different world.He began to read and fell in love with good literature.In 14 years, he read at least 1,400 books, which opened up a new perspective for him and made his life more colorful than before.Moreover, he had come to appreciate the great symphonies that had previously bored him.But the biggest change is that he now has time to think.He said: "For the first time in my life, I was able to observe the world carefully and have real values. I began to understand that most of the things I pursued in the past actually had no value at all."

Now Ford has become the Secretary General of the Georgia State Government.Although he was still in a wheelchair at this time, the results of reading made him interested in politics.He started paying attention to and researching public issues, speaking from his wheelchair, meeting a lot of people, and a lot of people know him through it.Now Ford lives a very free and happy life. And Milton, who probably wrote better poems because of his blindness; Because I am deaf, I can make better tunes. The person who created the basic concepts of life sciences - Darwin wrote: "If I had not had such a disability, I might not be able to do so much work that I have done." Darwin frankly admitted that his disability helped him unexpectedly . Nietzsche's definition of Superman is: "To be able not only to endure everything if necessary, but to love it all." Yes, if Dostoevsky and Tolstoy had not lived so full of torture, they might never have written those immortal works. If Tchaikovsky hadn't been so miserable, and his tragic marriage almost brought him to the brink of suicide, if his life hadn't been so miserable, maybe he would never have been able to compose the immortal "Symphony of Sorrow". And Abraham Lincoln, if he had been born into an aristocratic family, had a degree from Harvard Law School, and was happily married, perhaps he would never have found the immortal article published in Gettysburg from the bottom of his heart. speech, nor the poetic line of his second speech - "Mainful to no one, but to love everyone..." This is what the ruler of the United States once said The most beautiful and noble words. Suppose we are so depressed that we think it is impossible to make lemonade from lemons, but as long as we try to turn a negative into a positive, it will make us look forward instead of backward.Harry Emerson Fosdick said in "Seeing Everything": "The inhabitants of Scandinavia have a saying that we can use to encourage ourselves: 'The north wind made the Vikings.' Why do we feel that a safe and comfortable life, without any difficulties, can make a person good or happy? On the contrary, those who pity themselves will continue to pity themselves, even if they lie comfortably on a big cushion The world is no exception. But in history, a person's character and his happiness come from all kinds of circumstances - good, bad, all kinds of circumstances, as long as they have the courage to take their personal responsibility. So let I'll say it again: 'The north wind made the Vikings.'" Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones sparks your creativity and stimulates us too busy to have time or interest Worry about the past and things that have been done. Once, the world's most famous violinist Ollie Boole held a concert in Paris. The A string on his violin broke suddenly, but he still played the piece with the other 3 strings.Harry Emerson Fosdick said: "This is life, if your A string is broken, play the piece with the other three strings." This is not only life, it is more valuable than life.It can be said that this is a life victory. If I could, I would engrave these words of William Polisot on a bronze medal and hang them in every school: "The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your earnings. Any fool Both do, what really matters is profiting from your losses. That requires intelligence, and that's what separates the wise from the fool." So, to cultivate the psychology that brings you peace and happiness, remember: When fate sends us a lemon, we try to make a lemonade.