Disappointments are an inevitable part of life. It’s unfortunate but true. Though, the cure for disappointments is much more evasive, the cause remains the same: there was an expectation of something that was not fulfilled. And not only was it not fulfilled, I’ve found that depending upon the weighted value of the expectation, the disappointment can range from feeling like a minor let down to that of having a steam engine driven into your abdomen.
But no matter how you slice it, disappointments suck and are definitely not one of the major selling points for the whole living on planet earth experience. Or maybe it’s just me. Either way, I’m not a fan. During just about any time of the day, one could ask me what I want and I could give them a detailed list of everything I’m longing for; just pick the category and I’ll follow suit.
I know what I want.
I know what I want it to look like, feel like and even sound like.
And quite frankly, I want it now.
Not tomorrow.
Not in a few minutes.
Right.
This very moment.
It’s a personal problem I’ve been working through, you understand. That being the case, when a disappointment presents itself, boldly proclaiming that my expectation for said desire will not be coming to pass, I take it rather hard. And due to my ingrained tenacity, there’s usually a window from which I’ll fight to the death to see that my desires make it to full fruition.
But then, often times what happens next is a breaking of molds – my molds. My own ideas of how my life experience should go down, what it should look like both to me and to others. And then I really begin to see. Often times we see the end result of intrinsic satisfaction and think we know exactly how to attain it. I mean shit, we see the finish line, why not just blaze our own trail and come in first. But that’s where things get tricky. We don’t know everything - this came as a painful shock to me and still does if I’m honest. You see, despite all the random bullshit that clogs my brain on a relentless basis, I still feel that somehow I can manage it all. I can sort through it. I mean the data is all there. If nothing else, by God I will understand every last bit of how and why. And in the end, my goals and my way will be the highlight of my planned trajectory.
Wrong.
I mean sure, though planning and executing wise goals for reaching the desired end result are both encouraged and considered good practices, there are always variables we cannot possibly account for. We can’t see a detailed map of the future. Our filter of the past is typically clouded by our own murky interpretations of it. And our present? Well what is the present anyway other than a longing for something else? Sure it shouldn’t be that way. But for me, it usually is. Again, I’m working on this. But that’s not the point. The point is that there is so much we don’t know. So when we put our preconceived ideas of how we want something to turn out at the forefront, it’s hard to not try and control the manner in which they transpire in our lives. Some people might disagree with the line of thought that says forcing our own ambitions at maximum speed is a bad idea. But I tend to believe that the moment we feel we have to control something is the moment we should take a step back. Because if I’m gripping something so tight, how in the world could there ever be any room for it to evolve in healthy increments?
I believe that if we could see an aerial shot of our lives, we’d see disappointment after disappointment that turned out to be some of the greatest blessings we’ve ever experienced. We just can’t give up before the unveiling of the culmination of our efforts actually occurs. I know this sounds like a leap from the tone in which I started this rant but really, for me it’s part of the master plan of all of this. We all have needs and expectations. But never doubt, there are people in all of our lives that are key players in the realization of our destinies. They are who they are and we are who we are. And like it or not, we interact with one another. And quite often, because other human variables are involved, we get let down. Despite our death grip of control over our own circumstances, we still didn’t see all that needed to be seen in order to accommodate for this tailspin. From that place, many undesirable emotions flourish if care is not taken to avoid them: resentment, bitterness and sometimes even hopelessness. But I’m finding that the quicker I am to forgive both myself and the offending parties who played a role in said disappointment, the faster I am to make it to the other side. And what I’m finding is that usually my desires weren’t so bad after all, my expectations not so off base. There just happened to be variables that I couldn’t account for… things virtually out of my control though by my own hand.
But hope isn’t absent. Hope tinkers with my expectations. It reviews my heartache and redirects my focus. You see, my expectations may have been off a bit but all is not lost. In fact, all is not ever lost if it ever truly was. Often I find that mixed in with my failed expectations, the issue wasn’t the end result but rather my means of getting there. And quite frankly, the variables weren’t wrong but rather the execution of them. When I operate in wisdom, I find that throwing the baby out with the bath water is not always the best option. Sometimes, it’s best to push away my disappointments and review my desires. When I do? I find that my heart’s pursuit of satisfaction was not in vain at all. Quite the contrary really. I just had to get out of the way and let the pieces fall into place. Because unfortunately, it’s not until we’re either at the end of our rope or at the end of our struggle that we see how beautiful our dreams really were. Because really, the disappointment wouldn’t have been so great had the reality of the expectation not been so beautiful.
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