Handling disappointment

Disappointment is a part and parcel of every day living. We plan and act with the expectations of desired results or outcomes. Sometimes we do recieve our expected outcomes but sometimes we don’t. Whenever things, circumstances don’t go the way we intended we experience disappointment.

When it comes to people disappointment is mainly due to unmet expectations. Óther people behave irresponsibly about their duties. They don’t share the level of significance we assign to a specific task. They take it lightly and hence their involvement in the task is low. Their priorities are different than our. Hence they fail us. But this failure to receive the desired result is very distressing.

When we experience a few episodes of unmet expectations in non significant areas of life. We feel it’s insignificant and can easily brush it off.

But when these unmet expectations become frequent or we experience disappointment in a critically tender area of our life, it’s totally a differently story. People are shattered, they crumble and break down.

Just last week my friends 23 year old son expired in a car accident. It was extremely traumatic. The loss was profound, the magnitude of the impact emotionally was magnanimous. He just broke down. He was devastated.

Whereas once when his Mercedes met with a minor accident, he was disturbed. But after a few minutes he totally forgot about it.

The way we see our disappointment is the way we deal with it. The degree of our percieved loss is the degree of our disappointment.

The other day my staff lost our office Mobile phone. No one cared. She just informed the lost and found department and got a new replacement phone issued.

No one experienced any disappointment. There was no significant perception of loss or unmet expectations.

Sometimes loosing things I didn’t want to have in my life makes me happy.

Loss is not the cause of disappointment, it’s the perception of unmet expectations.

SO HOW DO WE DEAL WITH DISAPPOINTMENT?

Acceptance of whatever the situation is. No matter how great or insignificant the loss we experience. Just accepting the state and maintaining balance helps profoundly.

Taking responsibility for the situation and taking some form of remedial action brings in a lot of positivity and brightens the most negative circumstance.

My colleague a pediatrician lost her son. She was so shattered but a few days latter when I met her she was smiling and full of energy. She was helping her patients and playing with the little ones. She shared her reason for her joy and happiness. ” I lost one child but I now have many children”, she smiled “I am not required to serve just one child, I am serving 100s of children. They are all mine. I love them. The joy of service and purpose makes me overcome my grief. My child is in a better place.

Finding a purpose and creating a meaningful cause in life. Acceptance of the situation, no matter how huge it is, can weather any storm of unmet expectations. It will bring peace and harmony back quickly