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Dealing with disappointment.

By Bamboo In The Wind
Disappointment can be very distracting. It stays until we give a satisfactory answer to ourselves. Disappointment is generated with the difference between expectations and outcomes.

We expect to pass an exam with flying colors and find that we are not there. We expect to be selected for the football team and find that we are not. We expect our speech to go well, only to find that our mind is wandering while we are on stage. 

There are numerous such situations where what we expected does not happen. The reality of how well prepared we are determines what the outcome may be.

The question, then, is, do we have what it takes to understand the reality of our preparedness. Very often we like to tell ourselves more than we have what we have. We comfort ourselves into thinking we have prepared adequately. When we falter, we blame the circumstances, the people around us.

Strangely, despite placing blame, we feel uncomfortable about something we cannot explain and disappointment comes raging.

A simple way out is introspecting about the outcome we faced and understanding why. Building possible reasoning of why we have the outcome is the next best course of action. When we build reasoning, it calms us down from disappointment. It provides us a handle to participate in solving the cause of the problem we have. It gives us back control, the loss of which is the reason we feel disappointed in the first place. 

Very often reasoning provides us with clues to corrective action. It takes humility to speak truth with self. Accuracy of reasoning depends on the truthfulness with which we tell our story behind the outcome we have on our hands.

The art of storytelling comes from the heart; honesty helps us make the story believable. What we say, do and produce will have a string of humility woven into it. When humility is present, that is when the chance of disappointment is lowered.

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