We have all had moments of bad luck in our lives. Maybe you were bitten by a snake while you were working in your yard, maybe someone was rude to you at the grocery store, or maybe someone cut you off in traffic. We don’t like it when these things happen and, in most cases, we get mad and/or frustrated. However, what if you could do something productive with your situation? It doesn’t have to be something big or cost you money. I have tried to live a life where I take the positive out of the negative and use it for good. Last night, while I was watching Anderson Cooper on CNN, I was very interested in the story about the shark attack victims advocating for shark conservation.

It’s hard to find stories on the news these days about the environment or animals that don’t have some negative connotation. This story was refreshing as well as inspiring. There was an interview of two of the seven people that presented themselves in front of Congress to advocate against shark finning. That’s when sharks are caught and their fins sliced off and then their bodies dumped – alive – back into the ocean. The sharks then live out the rest of their short lives in pain as they sink and die in the ocean from which they were fished. Sound awful? Well it is; especially when one thinks about the millions and millions of sharks that are killed every year as opposed to the few that actually die from “shark attacks”.

We are used to the image of the human-hungry shark that is just looking for its next meal near the shores of our beautiful beaches. It is true that there are several, sometimes fatal, encounters between humans and sharks, but, is it their fault that we go into their home to work and play? How would you react if you were to have one of these encounters? You would probably be scared and maybe even angry, a natural reaction. However, what if you could take this negative experience into something positive? That is exactly what these few shark attack victims are doing. They are trying to defend the same animals that almost cost them their lives.

It was nice to see shark conservation on the news (a topic I hope to explore further in the future), but it was especially refreshing to see people that turned lemons into lemonade. And you know, we don’t have to wait to be bitten by a shark to do something similar. Next time you are treated rudely by a stranger or someone you know, be nice to as many people as you can that day. When you get bitten by a bug, think twice before you step on another bug or find a creative way of getting rid of the bug instead of just spraying it with the Raid. Think of all the great things we could do…we could make gallons and gallons of lemonade.

This is the video from CNN with the story: