Dealing with Disappointment

Disappointment comes to all of us. My dictionary says disappointment is a feeling of sadness that occurs when something doesn’t go as I planned. OK. That’s pretty accurate. Nobody relishes disappointment and, seems to me that by the very nature of the word, it is unexpected.

Years ago, a family member told me that I might as well face an unpleasant fact: I can’t make people behave as I want them to. Unless a person accepts that unpleasant fact, she is apt to go through life like an impatient horse, chaffing at the bit. There oughta be a better way, and there is. 

Psychologists say we have two basic reactions to trauma: fight or flight. Verbal fight or personalized flight. Flight could be getting away from the problem, maybe curling up in a ball and taking a nice, long nap. On a cloudy, chilly fall day, that would be the sensible thing to do. But I have a third option: face the fact, forget it, and move on.

So much for that dark, dismal, dastardly fact of life called disappointment!

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