When life hands you a lemon, don't always try to make lemonade. Crack it open, peel back the rind, and have taste. Maybe it's bitter, maybe it's tart, maybe it's just a bit too sweet. There could be a better lemon out there somewhere, and wouldn't you hate to find out that you settled for the first one that came along?

Relationships, now those are the real lemons in life. Externally they can seem so perfect, so seemless, blooming with potential and prosperity. It's not until you analyze and examine each one that you begin to find faults. There is no such thing as perfection, but there's always something close. Settling isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but why have something subpar when you could have the best?

We're all so quick to judge, so ready to assume. But that adorably condescending phrase we've all heard so many times, has become increasingly true. "When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and Me." You may think that the relationship that you've watched blossom since freshman year is a Joanie loves Chachie kind of romance, but it may not be. However, you're mind will instantly ASSUME that because they've been together for a whole three years, they'll be walking down the aisle the day after graduation. They might, or they could be over by the time that senior prom rolls around.

There are no garuntees in life, no warranties. If you break your life, you don't have unlimited maitenance and speedy repairs. As a whole, we've come to this unrealistic notion that our messes will be cleaned up for us. That behind every pile of shit we leave someone with a shovel will whisk away the remnants. It surpasses laziness. It has nothing to do with the dawn of technology, it's about morals and pride.

There was a time when a person was judged by intelligence, social rank, their car, the balance of their bank account. While this way of thinking may have been shallow and pretentious, there was some merit to the whole ideaology. It 2010, we judge eachother based on the number of friends we have on Facebook and Myspace. By how many "bad words" we can ram into a sentence without making it seem utterly ridiculous. We look for heros in all of the wrong places. Typically, we idolize stars who spend the majority of their time on television doing interviews about their newest addition to their police record. Shouldn't we, as a whole, look up to our presidents, world leaders, scientists, novelists, ect.?

There was a time when we noticed all of the little ironies in life. When we picked up the subtle hints of satire, sarcasm, and laughed at them. Not because they were amusing by today's standards, but because they were the intelligence of people shining through. Anyone can crack a good joke, but someone truly funny, is funny because they don't have to try. They don't sit down and write a dirty version of a beloved Christmas tune. They don't have to break out purple monkey puppets wsith lisps to make an audience laugh.

Speaking of noticing subtleties, I'll bet that you didn't notice the ironies I left in this piece. The fact that I complain of people assuming, but say "WE" through out the entire essay rather than I or another less encompassing pronoun.