All Hail The Lemonade Stand!
go do cool things, i ain't mad atcha' and no ones laughin' atcha'
Lemonade stands are usually a kid’s first try starting a business in America. Kids set up a table on a hot summer’s day to sell a refreshing mix of lemon juice, sugar, and water out of either a paper or styrofoam cup.
Adults come by and probably say to themselves “awh cute kids!” and pay a dollar or two to support. No one really expects the lemonade to be the best thing ever. At the end of the day, the kid or kids walk away with hopefully a little more pocket change than they started that day. Even more it was a fun way to spend the afternoon!
But baked in (maybe a bake sale as the example?) are a bunch of lessons that no kid probably set out to learn that day. This may have been the first time when they actually had to break a $5 dollar bill or give back change outside of a hypothetical homework assignment. They may learned how to sell something to adults, and, if they worked in a group, they may have had to learn to work as a team. You get my point.
As these kids get older into their teens, you hope they move on to bigger and better things: start a band (well this was a thing in the 2000s), sell drugs, build a social consumer app, make focaccia bread, the list goes on. But somewhere along the lines, these kids stop trying things when they become adults. People start worrying about what people think of them, or fear how their attempt will be perceived if it results in a failure.
You, the reader, might be one of those adults. If you are, I’m speaking to you. Maybe you were one of those kids that started a lemonade stand or maybe you weren’t, but either way it’s not too late to start something now. The pros of starting a new project or habit, publicly, far out weigh the cons. It’s about the little lessons you pick up along the way of just getting up and doing something.
Heck, I’m doing this right now with this essay. As I’m writing, here are the thoughts on my mind:
Oh my God, is this essay even gonna be worth reading?
Why would I or anyone I know for that matter want to share this?
Am I being coherent?
And many more questions. But, know what? As many questions I can write, I can think of the benefits:
By putting my thoughts out into the world, I’m inviting connection with likeminded people — and I find that fulfilling
I’m one essay closer to create a through-line between the fuzziness that’s in my head and turning it into something tangible + concrete on paper (lol i dunno if this sentence even makes sense, but fuck it!)
Writing in my own voice, for myself, is a freeing exercise in it of itself — and it helps me calm down.
And the list can go on. Here’s a fun little exercise you can do. Do exactly what I did above. Write the fears + questions + anxieties you have in your head as you think of starting [x] new thing, and limit it to three. Then create a separate list all together and write as many things you think you might learn or benefit from doing this thing. Then go do the thing. No ifs, buts, maybes, just
After you’ve done it, make a new list comprised of what you’ve actually learned. Then use that to compare it to the old list of lessons you thought you would learn. Combine both of those lists and weigh them against the questions/concerns/anxieties you wrote, I promise you’ll find that what you’ve gained is so much more than what you were worried about (yea we totally artificially manufactured this realization, so what?).
So quit overthinking. Go be a kid again. All hail the lemonade stand.
- Haroon