“Ultimately
the whole and the broken live side by side in us all.”
– E Frankel
Weiner et al (1979) found that disappointment is one of
the most frequently experienced emotions.
Rabbi
Harold Kushner asks, “How do people cope with the realisation that the
important dimensions of their lives will not turn out as they hoped they would?” We all experience disappointment.
Disappointment is defined as an experience of sadness
involving unfulfilled hopes or expectations. Disappointment forces you to admit
that you did not get what you hoped for and it is actually easier for you
to protest with anger than it is to encounter your sadness around the course of
events. Disappointment is the
acceptance of reality.
There is foremost a disappointment in ourselves that drops our spirit
into the lowest of lows, creating obstacles that we must overcome within ourselves
as we are held back and kept from reaching our goals. Our bodies react with a chemical response that leads to melancholy, inertia and a feeling of
hopelessness.
Every disappointment, every rejection, every dream that doesn’t come true leaves a wound on a person’s soul. - Kushner
What are some of the causes of our disappointment?
· Perfectionism: a perfectionist
lives in a fantasy world; we have to be real regarding our expectations.
· Overconfidence: people who embrace uncertainty are the ones who
manage to face problems. Uncertainty is acceptable.
· Setting unrealistic goals: be realistic, start with an
accessible goal and build from there.
· False ideas about rejection or failure: failure is only feedback
telling you that you should change your way, be more flexible or try harder. Do
not fear failure.
Disappointment is merely an unmet expectation, it’s only when you imbue it with negative meanings that it becomes painful - Goulston.
It is how we respond to disappointment that is crucial. Do we respond with bitterness, envy and self-doubt or with wisdom and resilience?
Overcoming Life’s disappointments:
1. Revise
expectations; “kyk weer” as we say in Afrikaans, take a second look at your
expectations, were they unrealistic?
2. Increase
your resilience to disappointment; do not allow it to lead you to pessimistic thoughts.
3. Use
humour to reframe the disappointment. A new study finds
that positive reframing i.e. looking at a circumstance in a different light and
perhaps laughing about setbacks is an effective way to feel satisfied at the
end of the day. Yet we acknowledge that not everything can be seen through a humorous lens.
“If we will be quiet and ready, we shall find
compensation in every disappointment” – Henry David Thoreau.
I believe there are always ‘treasures in the
darkness’, we just have to search or look back in order to acknowledge lessons learnt.
We also have to acknowledge that if life did not challenge us, we would
not know how strong we are.
A most invaluable lesson we can all learn is that life is
about facing our past with gratitude and our future with confidence. Even as we
carry with us the memories of dreams that never came true; there are always more
attainable dreams awaiting us.
“ The worth of a person’s soul is not measured by his/her
bank account or the volume of the applause a person evokes but by one’s humanity,
by one’s compassion, even by the courage to keep on dreaming amid the broken
pieces of our earlier dreams. True
success consists not in becoming the person you dreamed of being when you were
young, but in becoming the person you were meant to be, the person you are
capable of being when you are at your best." - Kushner
Keep on dreaming.
- The cognition–emotion process in achievement-related contexts. Weiner, Bernard; Russell, Dan; Lerman, David Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37(7), Jul 1979, 1211-1220. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.37.7.1211
- Dr. Mark Goulston, Psychology Today.
- Harold. S Kushner, Overcoming Life’s disappointments, 2007
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