Disappointment!
It’s a great thing when we get the things we hoped for. Whether we dreamt about it, worked hard for it, received a promise about it, or prayed for it, it’s a lofty feeling to have your expectations met. That aside we live in an imperfect world. Lots of bad things happen. Stealing, lying, cheating, scamming, and things like these happen. Stuff happens! One of such stuff is disappointment! People make promises all the time. It could be a written or verbal agreement. It could be the taking or lending or payment of loans. It could be a vow: marriage mates, office-holders, and career oath-takers. It could be a simple promise: ‘I’ll pick your laundry on my way back from work’; ‘I will pay you a visit this weekend’; ‘I’m on the road, I’ll call you when I get home’. Even simple promises like these are not met at times. Some persons don’t see anything wrong to make a promise and fail to meet up with their word; they see it as normal. These persons don’t recognize that when you make a promise and you deliberately fail to meet up with that promise even though it was within you power to do so and you thereafter, felt no remorse about what you’ve done: you lied! You are a liar! Worst still, some make promises that they, ab initio, have no intention of keeping whatsoever!
Now, that’s beside my point. Some of us are used to having our demands met. Such individuals are not used to disappointments; they always have their way. That is why, people like that get utterly shocked and dejected when they face up with disappointments. Dear friends, disappointments are part of this life. We don’t always get what we want and that may be for good reasons. Sometimes, we, particularly young ones, want things that we don’t need or things that may be harmful to us. Fallible humans can’t always keep all their promises. Disappointment is real. So, we live with it. We spend a critical part of our adulthood learning that we can’t always get what we want and people don’t always keep their promises. Accepting this reality is part of growing up.
What’s important is not whether or not other people will disappoint us, that is a proven certainty; what’s important is how we prepare for that disappointment. The way we prepare for disappointments go a long way to tell how we react to them and how well we fare with them. The thing is: we should always have it in the back of our mind that ANYONE can disappoint us. It’s a fact. Be surprised when others keep their promises. Don’t be surprised when they don’t. It’s not pessimistic to expect disappointment; it’s realistic. A friend once told me in school back in the day: ‘There is nothing wrong to hope for the best while preparing for the worst.’ Those who are more adversely affected with disappointments are those who fail to prepare for such reality; those who live in an alter reality. We save for the future, make plans for tomorrow, acquire things of different interests and value, not laying all our egg s in one basket, and take measures to protect ourselves from whatever harm there is in the unforeseeable future; we do all this because, as adults, we have grown to accept that we live in a world that is filled and full of disappointments! The next time you make a promise to someone, put yourself in the shoes of that person and ask yourself, ‘How will I feel if I’m disappointed or let down?’ We can make our world a little better when we say what we mean and mean what we say. On the short run, people don’t like individuals who speak with sincerity, truth and candour, but on the long run, such individuals earn the respect of others. It’s the exact opposite for those who make insincere and false promises. We can live with disappointment; what we can’t live with is being the disappointment.
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