Disappointment has many faces. Sometimes it turns into ambition. Sometimes it turns into depression. Disappointment doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It comes from the pain of expectation. Oh, and expectation is such a harsh enemy. The reason it is our enemy is because we need it to survive. It is a natural part of our being. Expectations help us get through the day, interact with others, and plan for the future. We expect to be safe. We expect our only enemy to be the grind. That doesn’t mean an earthquake can’t turn your life upside down. It doesn’t mean a shooter can’t destroy your life or a drunk driver to take the life of one you love. We expect those things not to happen. Just like we don’t expect to be attacked by ninjas. But in some ghettoes across the world physical violence is a daily threat. It is part of the expectations. The world is harsh and if you are a minority, a woman, or smaller person, there will be people who you can expect to use brute force on you.
Expectations hurt us the most when they are not real. When they are founded on imagination. When we see threats that don’t exist, we live in fear. When we expect someone to live up to a standard we imposed and they don’t, we feel let down. When we expect ourselves to achieve something we didn’t work for, we are disappointed. That disappointment is a harsh mirror at times.
If you want to be all Zen you can try and drop your expectations. That is a solution. Or you can come to terms with disappointment. You can learn from it. You can analyze it and grow. You can use it as a starting place and not an adjective. You don’t need to feel down, when things don’t go your way. In fact, you can let it go. I know easier said than done, we all should have been millionaires by the age of thirty. It is a damn shame it doesn’t work out like that. But we need to change our focus. LIFE, and our expectation of how it should needs to become in line with what is. Then when we don’t get the result of our expectations, we can adjust and try again. We don’t let it affect us. We use our expectations as experiments in life.
The world will let us down. Our expectations of ourselves may not be founded on truth. Our desire for others to live in a way we find acceptable might not happen. Life as we know it can become more dynamic if we let go of our expectations as a must and turned them into a “Maybe, lets see what will happen?”
Don’t let disappoint be your default. If it happens, let it be a reality check.
Alright, that is all I got today.
Later Gator 🐊
Nino
Nino Olson 