Disappointment is, literally, failing to keep an appointment. Which is why I think it hurts a little more than the other bumps and bruises of life.
When you feel disappointed, you are feeling deprived of something you thought was already in motion. If you’re feeling like you have an “appointment” with a promotion or a successful presentation or a new love, having that thing not work out is especially crushing because it was kind of a done deal inside your mind.
And that old saw about “don’t get your hopes up, and that way you won’t get disappointed,” is the biggest bunch of hooey I’ve ever heard.
First of all, it’s a bad strategy because it plain doesn’t.
If something you want doesn’t work out, you’re going to be bummed whether or not you had anticipated the failure.
And missing an opportunity to have delightfully high hopes seems. . . churlish.
I understand the impulse to say, “I just don’t want to get hurt again.” But guess what? You’re here to get hurt.
We’re here to try again. and again. and again. We’re here to gain resiliency.
So I say go ahead — get your hopes up. Dream big, lush, vivid dreams. Imagine your ideal of success with the full knowledge that reality may never measure up.
Then when things do work out, you haven’t wasted one moment tamping down your enthusiasm. And if they don’t work out, well, then, you are free to feel the full force of your disappointment. Which may or may not be as bad as you had imagined it might be.
I bet that if you stacked up all your disappointments you would you would find that very few of them make you think, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t even tried that.” I bet you would mostly think, “Well, I sure learned a lot.”
And that’s the other thing we’re here for: our soul’s education.
Nevertheless, disappointments can leave deep scars. And some disappointments take longer to heal than we’d like, even when we know we “should be over it by now.”
(Over it by now? Says who? What is this mysterious global time frame on getting over things? Honestly.)
Disappointment is a wise and valuable teacher. It acquaints you with grief. Grief, said the Greeks, is the daughter of anger and sadness. These two powerful emotions need to be felt, explored, and lived through.
Otherwise we are only a living shadow of our true selves: pretending we don’t care about the things we care about most.
So there’s a time to cry and a time to stop crying.
photo credit: A.K. Photography via photopin cc
And as you stand there
Late again
Because you forgot to allow time to park
And the elevator was slow
And you left 10 minutes late to begin with
With your shoes that pinch
And your pants that are a little too small
Since you started eating white bread again
And as you paw through your bag
Looking for the suite number
That you’re not sure you wrote down to begin with
Let us now praise you.
You, the untidy.
You, the careless.
You, the easily distracted by sparkly things.
The money you spend on late fees alone
Could feed a family in Africa –
Which reminds you that you meant to send in the kids’ Unicef money and
Forgot.
And that despite your best efforts,
You rarely eat a square meal,
You almost never get enough sleep
And exercise seems like a word that magazines have developed
Just to make you feel bad about yourself.
But you are good and brave.
You, flying by the seat of your pants
Making it work
Putting out fires
Saying your prayers
And dancing your dance of now and later and maybe and
I’ll–have-to-call-you-back-on-that-could-you-send-me-an-email-to-remind-me-to-call-you-back-on-that?
As innocent as each morning’s sunrise,
You are a fount of good intentions.
Your good humor is as graceful as a baby giraffe,
Even if that joke you were trying to make to the hotel clerk fell flat
And your toast at the wedding came out sounding a little….funny.
But you have gifts that no one knows about.
You have the strength to bend in the wind
You have the joyful spirit that loves a good belly laugh,
You have the wisdom to understand that everything will all come out all right in the end and
You have the faith to light a candle rather than curse the darkness.
That is, if you could find the book of matches from that romantic restaurant that you went to for your anniversary but since you didn’t have a reservation they made you wait at the bar for half an hour during which you had two appletinis and the rest of the night is a bit of a blur.
So much for the overpriced lingerie.
You are beautiful.
You are beautiful.
Frazzled and overworked and underpaid
You are the one who forgot your wallet
And forgot your receipt for the dry cleaners
And forgot your keys which you just set down five seconds ago, so where could they possibly have gone?
But you never forget to say, “I love you”
And you never forget to give a big smile to that nice parking guy
And you never fail to show endless patience when the
Too-tightly wrapped and overly-conscientious start to offer their Oh-so-helpful suggestions about how you might feel better if you would just learn to alphabetize your spice rack.
You are beautiful.
So, wear the lingerie on Monday for no reason.
And why not just refuse to participate in the bake sale this year?
And give yourself a compliment for something you did well today.
Because you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.
And as you stand there
Hands clasped in front of you
Eyes downcast
Concealing the disobedient pounding of your heart
It dawns on you:
Here we go again.
And while you no longer allow yourself the long, elaborate
daydreams in which everything works out perfectly,
You catch yourself thinking: Well, it could happen.
And though you have long since given up making bargains
with God,
You find yourself whispering: Please.
And since you have — years ago — quit telling
Anyone anything about anything
Because honestly,
The things people say, such as,
“Oh, it will happen for you, I just know it!”
Really?
“I have a friend who went through the same thing and then one
day, just like magic. . .”
Really?
“The minute you stop wanting it, that’s when it will happen.”
Oh. Okay.
So you haven’t told a soul.
Except, after long consideration, your very dearest best friend.
And you know the odds are against you.
And still
You know that life is not a numbers game and
The Lord does, indeed, move in some very mysterious ways and
Haven’t you earned —
And there you stop short.
Because life is also not about earning or deserving,
And it doesn’t matter how hard you’ve tried or how much you’ve
sacrificed or how positive your positive mental attitude has
been.
What matters is reality.
And reality says: It’s possible.
So you dwell in possibility.
Between the dark and the daylight.
No longer storming off, slamming doors, and swearing, “Never
again.”
No longer crying out in agony because you had been so sure this
was It.
No longer elated by another promising sign.
You are here now.
Committed to enjoying the ride.
Trusting in the friendliness of the universe.
Awakened to your heart’s desire.
Knowing that there is no such thing as false hope.
All hope is real.
Real. Hope. Now.
It’s all we have.
And who knows?
Perhaps the best really is
Yet to come.
Here’s another hard truth: your talent doesn’t entitle you to anything.
You will not be surprised to learn that talent is not enough.
Every artist is (or believes herself to be) talented.
Talent is the price of admission, kids.
You’d be amazed how many agent/manager/gallery owner submission letters say, “I’m very talented and I think we should work together.”
You’re talented? Whoopee.
I mean, seriously, you’d better be. You’re going to look pretty silly calling yourself an artist if you’re not talented.
So it’s time to move on. You’re going to need to offer more than just that.
Another problem with getting too hung up on talent is that artists sometimes feel indignant because they feel — hell, they know — that they are far and away the best, most talented person for a particular job, and yet they don’t get selected.
That can be a bitter pill to swallow.
It’s hard knowing you’re the best choice and still be passed over.
But I have noticed something: people don’t always make the best choices.
In the same way that you don’t always choose the best food for your body, or the best shoes for your feet, or the best television show to watch, other people don’t always choose the best artist for the job.
The world might be a better place if we all read only the highest quality books, only screened the highest-quality movies, and only drove the best, most efficient cars.
But “best” is not our only criterion.
Sometimes convenience counts.
Sometimes what’s in fashion is important.
Sometimes it’s all about what’s sexy.
Sometimes a person wants a little schlock — a little artistic junk food.
Sometimes cheesy is perfect.
What’s best is not only relative; it’s often irrelevant.
So cut the people a little slack — you wouldn’t always choose you, either.
I should have done things differently.
Now it’s too late.
I’ve missed my chance.
I screwed it up.
I should have known.
I say: baloney.
You did the very best you could do under the circumstances and with the information you had at the time.
Honestly, I’m not sweet-talking you with some feel-good mumbo jumbo here — I’m serious.
As I’ve said, in my experience everyone is always doing the best they can do — and if they could do better, they would.
So we need to bless the past. We need to settle in to the reality that the past cannot be any different from what it is.
We need to look back and realize that we have, indeed, always done the best we knew how to do — even when our best wasn’t very good. And that if the universe is friendly, we can assume it’s all been, somehow, correct.
We can wish things were different, but we might as well wish the mountains would walk down to the sea, because in this very moment, they can’t be any different.
Sometimes something happens that hurts us so deeply we think it can’t be right — it must be bad. We do something awful to someone we love. We ignore our intuition and we stay in some bad job, relationship, or situation longer than we should.
We are caught in some life circumstance that feels just horrible. I’m not saying we should paint those situations pink and call them cheerful. That would be diminishing, disrespectful, and cold.
You are allowed to feel as hurt as you are, as angry as you are, as sad as you are, as disappointed as you are.
Do whatever you need to do to express those feelings in a safe way:
bash the mattress with a whiffle bat, pray, cry, run, write, sing, apologize…
If you need help to move through those feelings, for heaven’s sake, set aside your pride/skepticism/reluctance and get some. And once we’ve worked through all our emotions, we are still left with the truth: the past is what it is, and it cannot be different.
Often, having discharged our pent-up emotion about the past, we can even see how it really was for the best — how whatever happened was a valuable (if painful) lesson for us, and we can genuinely feel grateful for the experience.
Even in the case of loved ones dying, well, we have to know that as much as it saddens us to lose time with our beloveds, we all have to die. Even with everything we know about medicine and prevention and safety, illness, death, and accidents still happen — in just the same way that unlikely healings and miracles and near misses still happen.
So we are humbled by our lack of control, and we bow our heads and still our hearts and say, “It is what it is.” And it cannot be any different, no matter how hard we wish it were so.
We can cling to the fantasy that it’s possible to change the past, or we can declare the past the past, deal with our current feelings (whatever they may be), and move on. The past is what it is, and we can move on from here.
ACTION STEP:
Repeat after me: I can move on from here.
Photo credit: Khánh Hmoong via photopin cc
It isn’t the prettiest aspect of your personality, but there it is: jealousy.
Ick. How very seventh-grade of you. But all of us, no matter how far beyond seventh grade we’ve gotten, feel jealous sometimes.
And here’s a news flash: jealousy is a gift.
Jealousy is your gut’s way of telling you that first of all, whatever it is, you want some. And moreover, you believe that you could have it. After all, you are never jealous of those who have things you don’t want.
Imagine that your best friend just added an amazing rare frog to her rare frog collection. Feel jealous? I didn’t think so.
If you have no interest in frog husbandry, you don’t feel jealous. Mystified, maybe, about why she might want to collect frogs to begin with (in much the same way your family might feel about you and your choice of a career in the arts), but in no way jealous.
Now, if that same friend suddenly lucked into an all-expenses paid six-month artist’s retreat in a villa in Provence, you might feel jealous. Because that, you want.
This is part one of the gift: the simple acknowledgment of desire.
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes pretend that I don’t want what I want. I pretend that things are okay with me when they aren’t. I pretend to be patient when I feel impatient. I pretend I don’t mind being passed over when, in fact, I mind very much.
Have you done that? Tried to quiet that “I want” voice? Hurts a bit, no?
The second half of the equation, and perhaps the more important half, is this: you believe you are capable of getting it. You are only ever jealous of things you believe you could do or have yourself.
What if your frog-loving best friend just swam the English Channel? Still not jealous, are you? Of course not, because not only do you not want to do that, but you also don’t think you have the ability.
But if that friend wins an award in something you think you could do, or reaches some milestone you aspire to, or obtains some neat thing that you’re pretty sure you could obtain if only the circumstances were right, then that green-eyed monster light is likely to start flashing.
Exercise : Harnessing the Power of Jealousy
Jealousy is a signal from within about desire and will. Add a little anger (also known by its polite name, frustration) and the recipe is complete.
Again, it’s not pretty, but it is an important message from your inner self — ignore it at your peril.
So the next time you find yourself trying to muzzle that nasty little voice of jealousy, take a moment and ask yourself:
1. Do I want that?
2. Why do I want that? What will getting that thing mean
to me?
3. Do I think I could have it?
4. What do I think is standing in the way of my obtaining that?
5. What fifteen-minute baby steps could I take today toward
that?
See if making a little progress toward your own goals doesn’t turn that jealous-monster voice into a happy-cheering-look-at-me go voice.
Keep making those baby steps toward your goal, and I bet that someday soon someone might just be jealous of you.
