"When life gives you lemons, grab a hot chic some tequila and do body shots"

[GQguy]

"When life gives you lemons, grab a hot chic some tequila and do body shots"

"When life gives you lemons, grab a hot chic some tequila and do body shots"
-GQguy- (said during my first official military speech on attitude)

On my run the other day I realized how lucky I was to have certain "tragedies" happen in my life that allowed me to grow. What are your tragedies that from the outside sound terrible but you know it's the best thing that ever happened to you.

Not in order or importance

1) Cheated on by my first love: Taught me to be better intuitive to a woman's needs. Taught me what women to avoid. Allowed me to focus on myself and create a new self image constantly focusing on conscious self improvement . Dating life was slow before her...the number, the quality of women all skyrocketed after her. Definitely a blessing.

2) Cut from basketball team: Taught me that there are certain things i'm not going to be good at right away. I'll need to work twice as hard to finish second to last. The next year the coach cut two of his players to make room for me to start. I got invited to tryout at a D1 school the next year. Now i'm learning to fly and it doesn't come easily to me. Again i'm in the boat of working harder than my peers to stay afloat. It's comforting to know i've been in these shoes before and to know what has to be done.

3) My dad's coma and near death experience: Taught me that i'm my own man. I need to take risks. I need to take care of myself. I did and i've gotten the respect of my family, peers, my father and myself. I wouldn't tell my dad I was glad it happened......but i'm happy with it's effects on me.

4) Enlisting: It was rough dropping out of school studying physics to working with kids fresh out of highschool. But I learned to work towards a common purpose. I learned about duty to country and an appreciation for what it takes to keep it free. I learned that attitude dictates direction. I worked my ass off and the job I have now keeps my hands full. Despite having the shittiest jobs in the military hardwork paid off and I have a job I wouldn't have even dreamed of as a Physicist. Attitude is key.


How about you guys? What tragedies are you glad happened? Why are you glad?

GQ

 

[Bothersome]

I can't think of a single negative thing in my life that I didn't benefit from.

That's the beautiful thing about being human. We experience. We learn. We adapt.

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

So, if I'm hearing everybody right...it sounds like you're saying that it's better not to...oh I don't know...say...go to an Internet forum to try and squeeze every last drop of compassion and sympathy possible from it's members; but rather to roll with it, adapt, and come through a stronger and better person?

That's some pretty radical thinking there, GQ.

 

[Mitchell]

The two that come to my mind are educational.

1. Not being accepted into the town we lived in's private school in CT, after being basically expelled from HS, and placed on homebound the last six weeks of my freshman year in HS. Basically, I failed the SSAT private school enterance exam, and my parents told me that I was going to have to go back to public HS, and suck it up. I did, and my grades improved the last three years of HS.

2. Being forced to drop out of college for what would have been my senior year. At the time, my head was not screwed on straight, my GPA had slipped from a nearly 3.6 in fall semester of my junior year, to a 2.4 spring semester. I was just not into school. I dropped out, worked for a year, then was able to go back for senior year, and I did great, with my GPA shooting up to nearly a 3.5 again, and making many new friends that I would not have had, if I had continued on straight through.

Those are the two main ones I can think of.

Mitch

 

[Bothersome]

So, if I'm hearing everybody right...it sounds like you're saying that it's better not to...oh I don't know...say...go to an Internet forum to try and squeeze every last drop of compassion and sympathy possible from it's members; but rather to roll with it, adapt, and come through a stronger and better person?

That's some pretty radical thinking there, GQ.

Well, unless you consider going to an internet forum a tragic event... then no. That's not at all what he was saying.

 

[GQguy]

It's inspiring to see people that get knock downed, dust themselves off and decide to be better because of it. It's great that everyone is sharing their downfalls and their eventual redemptions.

What's radical to think is having a background with numerous "losses" can actually be an advantage when pitted against individuals that have never failed before.

Keep em coming guys.

GQ

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

Well, unless you consider going to an internet forum a tragic event... then no.

You've misunderstood. I was referring to going to the internet forum as a way to deal with the tragic event, not the tragic event itself.

That's not at all what he was saying.

What are you, his personal secretary? I think he can speak for himself.

 

[Bothersome]

You've misunderstood. I was referring to going to the internet forum as a way to deal with the tragic event, not the tragic event itself.

What are you, his personal secretary? I think he can speak for himself.

Well, the point of the thread is how you benefited from tragedies, not how you dealt with them.

Which is mostly why I was confused by your off-topic comment.

 

[kopfhorer]

What's radical to think is having a background with numerous "losses" can actually be an advantage when pitted against individuals that have never failed before.

How true. Folks who've led sheltered lives very often can't deal with the rain, so to speak.

This might seem ultra-light duty compared to what people have been discussing here, but I think it's relevant.

A few weeks ago, my computer's CPU started overheating. I suspected the heat sink paste between the CPU and the heat sink might have dried up, which it turned out it had. On top of that, my secondary (data) hard drive had inexplicably crashed.

The short version is that I managed to figure out and fix both problems, even though it literally took all day.

When I was done, I'd not only fixed my machine and rescued data (not all of which had been backed up) which I thought was gone for good, but I learned a lot more about computers and about my abilities than if I'd called up a repair shop (assuming I could have afforded to do so). I also got a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. You won't find that at Best Buy!

 

[Leo tickles]

My dad being the way he was, abusive, has taught me a number of things. One, how to be the most vile and uncaring person in the world to somebody, yet do it because I care. And two, how to control that and turn it to something positive by resolving problems instead of destroying somebody just because the problems came up.

Leaving school has taught me that life out there is hard, but over time it becomes much easier as you expand your horizon and find things you are good at elsewhere.

Relationships have taught me patience, understanding, and the realization that a happy ending isn't what you think it is when you are 12, it's that feeling you get when you look into somebody's eyes. I'm still learning the lesson of ending things that aren't good for me, though I don't think my current situation with my grrfriend falls into that.

 

[GQguy]

Well, the point of the thread is how you benefited from tragedies, not how you dealt with them.

Which is mostly why I was confused by your off-topic comment.

The point of the thread is how you benefited from tragedies based on how you dealt with them. Without dealing with them in the manner above the tragedy would be simply a tragedy. That's the point. The goal is to remind ourselves of what we've overcome through positive thinking and to encourage others to do the same.

 

[Bothersome]

The point of the thread is how you benefited from tragedies based on how you dealt with them. Without dealing with them in the manner above the tragedy would be simply a tragedy. That's the point. The goal is to remind ourselves of what we've overcome through positive thinking and to encourage others to do the same.

Now, I would agree, except that how we dealt with tragedies was never actually brought up in the opening post. The question to us was, "What tragedies are you glad happened? Why are you glad?"

How you deal with a tragedy, and how you benefit from it are two very different things. How you deal with it is short-term. How you benefit is long-term.

They're not even correlated. Someone could deal with a situation horribly (go on a drinking binge after getting a divorce), and yet still benefit tremendously from the whole experience.

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

Well, the point of the thread is how you benefited from tragedies, not how you dealt with them.

And my point was that if you don't deal with them correctly, you miss out on the benefits.

Which is mostly why I was confused by your off-topic comment.

It wasn't off-topic, so there must be some other explanation for your confusion. Perhaps a little soul searching is in order?

 

[Bothersome]

And my point was that if you don't deal with them correctly, you miss out on the benefits.

Not even remotely close to being true. As I stated earlier, you can go on a drinking binge over getting a divorce, but still receive some benefits from the whole thing. Dealing with a tragedy is a short-term ordeal. Benefiting from it is long-term.

So long as you have the memory of the experience, you can learn from it, and better yourself. There's no rule that states that if you don't deal with a scenario in a certain fashion, you won't learn anything from it.

It wasn't off-topic, so there must be some other explanation for your confusion. Perhaps a little soul searching is in order?

It actually was quite off-topic, as I've already explained.

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

The point of the thread is how you benefited from tragedies based on how you dealt with them. Without dealing with them in the manner above the tragedy would be simply a tragedy. That's the point. The goal is to remind ourselves of what we've overcome through positive thinking and to encourage others to do the same.

Thanks for setting the record straight, GQ. It's pretty silly to suggest that the way we deal with tragedies has nothing to do with how much we benefit from them.

 

[GQguy]

Thanks for setting the record straight, GQ. It's pretty silly to suggest that the way we deal with tragedies has nothing to do with how much we benefit from them.

I guess I wasn't explicit enough. The "when life gives you lemons" bit says exactly that. You're given a shitty situation and you make the most of it. That was the point. Everyone that shared their stories understood.

Bothersome. Where's your story bro? A story where "when life gives you lemons, you grabbed a hot chic some tequila and did body shots" as in your attitude dictated your circumstances...not the other way around.