Disappointment a less in reality

You have had a bad disappointment and you can’t seem to recover. Your friends have expressed their feelings and have said that life just hasn’t treated you fairly. Your family seems almost depressed; their sympathy for you was exhausting. In time, you dwelt on the bad feelings that accompanied the aftermath until you too are now living in a depressed state.

In today’s world, nearly everyone suffers disappointment to some degree. Accepting it and using that disappointment to affect future roadmaps can be a blessing in disguise. Coping with the negative feelings and turning our feelings around is a three-step process.

• First, admit the disappointment to yourself. Acknowledge the pain and allow yourself to feel the loss. Don’t prolong the pain by criticizing others. It may feed your ego, but you must accept the consequences.

• Realize that no single event or goal in life is necessary to survival. Look back on past disappointments and see that life went on – that you even achieved happiness from other pursuits.

• Accent the positive. Disappointment is a less on in reality. Not all things are possible. The poet Browning best expressed this when he said, “Man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Then after accepting the disappointment, analyze yourself. Some personality styles seem to have more disappointments than others.

• Are you a type who has an overwhelming desire to please everyone? If so, realize that disappointments results from impossible attempts to meet all demands, real or imagined?

• Were you a child of deprivation? If early childhood was not kind to you, you may have developed a self-fulfilling theory that life is just pain, that success and happiness will not be yours. If you were emotionally deprived in childhood, you may be a hopeless romantic, constantly disappointed in each romantic relationship, never finding fulfillment in any lover or partner.

Then consider why disappointment hit you with a hard blow. Did you grow up in a time when optimism for success was at an all-time high? Were you taught that success would not be denied anyone who worked hard enough? Were you indoctrinated in the instant-change, instant-process period? Have you examined all the how-to books to instantly change your personality, lifestyle and body shape? The reality of these books is that behavior can be modified, but it takes personal commitment and courage.

Finally, you can prepare to buffer the pain of future disappointment.

• You can be more realistic. List the things that you expect from your family, your job, and your friends. Often our expectations exceed what can be accomplished.

• You can learn to be flexible. If your expectations are unmet for reasons beyond your control, change them. You don’t necessarily have to settle for less. Expect something different.

• You can realize that each of us has our limitations. Learn to accept life in the present and enjoy whatever comes your way. Disappointments need not mar happiness.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1986