“There’s always failure. And there’s always disappointment. And there’s always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.” ~ Michael J. Fox
No one warns you that adulting will be filled with that same sense of sadness you have as a kid when you think you’re getting something really cool for your birthday and then find out you got socks. (Note: receiving socks as an adult is never disappointing for some reason.) Or when you order something that looks awesome online and it shows up half the size you expected. Disappointment is far more common in adulthood than I thought it would be: disappointment in myself, in other people, in loved ones, in the government, in the weather. The possibilities for disappointment are endless. Just yesterday I was disappointed when I couldn’t get the furnace working, disappointed over the national news in general, disappointed by hate and ignorance expressed online by people I believed were better than that… I could go on, but that was all before 10 a.m.
To be disappointed in an imperfect world is not unusual, it’s human. Life ebbs and flows through varying levels of disappointment and its opposites: achievement, attainment, triumph. It’s during those ebbs, particularly when they are long in duration and the disappointments are stacked one on top of the other, that disappointment (aka bummers, downers, defeats) become a hard load to bear.
The kneejerk reaction to disappointment in most of us is probably frustration and rage. It’s more socially acceptable to throw things and complain loudly than it is to cry and be sad. And rage feels like we are doing something, it subverts the sense of being a victim of misfortune or injustice that accompanies disappointment.
That should tell us something about what we’re seeing around us. Too many people are acting on rage and frustration, either in person or online, and that’s causing even more harm and damage. I get it. I, too, would like nothing more than to punch the people I perceive as the source of my woes right in the schnoz, but even if that made me feel momentarily better, it wouldn’t have a positive long-term outcome.
So what is best practice for dealing with disappointment? Acceptance.
[Insert heavy sigh here.] I know, easier said than done, but acceptance of the situation as it is, releasing expectations, and acknowledging what we do have control over, which is usually limited to our own response, is the way out.
As someone has said, don’t give those people and/or situations you can’t control precious space in your heart or head rent-free. It’s only hurting you, not them.