Tri­cia St John

Some­times we ex­pect too much from peo­ple. We ex­pect them to re­act to things the way we would. To give as we would give. Peo­ple are who they are though, so ex­pect­ing them to re­act to sit­u­a­tions the way you would is en­tire­ly un­rea­son­able and can on­ly lead to dis­ap­point­ment.

You meet a guy, he’s ex­cit­ing, in­ter­est­ing and on his best be­hav­iour. Months pass and he re­lax­es in­to his reg­u­lar self. He’s loud, doesn’t like to bathe, curs­es. He’s self­ish and opin­ion­at­ed and grates on your very last nerve. So now what? You run scream­ing for the hills. Ap­palled that you were at­tract­ed to such a char­ac­ter and dis­ap­point­ed be­cause you were blind­ed by the mask he start­ed off wear­ing.

You get a job. You’re told that your du­ties are X, Y and Z and your work­ing hours are from 6 am to 2 pm. Rea­son­able hours, so you’re sat­is­fied with that. You’re told pay is al­ways on time, and you ac­cept the job of­fer, re­lieved and thank­ful. And then, your pay is al­ways late, or short and you’re over­worked be­cause you’re do­ing your job and two oth­er peo­ple’s jobs. Some­times dis­ap­point­ments hit hard­er when we find our­selves in sit­u­a­tions where we be­lieve we have no choice but to re­main. What can hap­pen with a job is, we get trapped in the ‘pay cheque to pay cheque syn­drome’ and we be­come fear­ful of ini­ti­at­ing any kind of change.

For most, even be­fore our chil­dren are con­ceived, we are dis­ap­point­ed by the tim­ing of their en­trance, by their gen­der, or by the way they im­pact our bod­ies. Moth­er­ing does not come with a man­u­al, and what works for one child is un­like­ly to work for the oth­er. And as chil­dren grow, and de­vel­op their own minds, and meth­ods of rea­son­ing, they can of­ten times stray from what they were taught and what they know to be right. Out­side in­flu­ence, can some­times be neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive and some­times in strug­gling to find them­selves, chil­dren may end up act­ing out in a way that par­ents may find dis­ap­point­ing.

Dis­ap­point­ment is in­evitable at some point or oth­er, but that doesn’t make it easy to process. Some­times dis­ap­point­ment can leave us so dis­en­chant­ed that we’re not giv­ing any­one else a chance lest they leave us as dis­ap­point­ed as the last per­son left us. Some­one who is not re­silient enough may give up on life be­cause they can­not deal with con­stant dis­ap­point­ment from sit­u­a­tions and peo­ple. It may lead to a de­featist syn­drome or in­ter­fere with one’s self-es­teem and con­fi­dence. One can al­so be­come bit­ter or pes­simistic. It takes a lot to bounce back from a dis­ap­point­ing sit­u­a­tion, based on the sit­u­a­tion and or lev­el of dis­ap­point­ment.

A failed re­la­tion­ship, en­gage­ment or mar­riage, may cause one to re­main sin­gle, be­cause go­ing for­ward they don’t have to an­swer to any­one, and they’re free to do as they very well please. You may think that if you keep to your­self no one will get a chance to dis­ap­point you. The truth is, peo­ple need peo­ple, so whether it’s a per­son or a sit­u­a­tion cre­at­ed by a per­son or per­sons, one can ad­mit that dis­ap­point­ment can be bet­ter dealt with if you have a sup­port sys­tem.

Dis­ap­point­ment can be used as a lad­der to suc­cess once you don’t al­low it to con­sume you. Dust your­self off, and don’t get at­tached to the dis­ap­point­ment. Keep go­ing, un­til you ei­ther get over who dis­ap­point­ed you or find a break­through in a sit­u­a­tion. Why does dis­ap­point­ment hurt so much? Our brains in­ter­pret cer­tain dis­ap­point­ing events as in­stances that un­der­mine our well-be­ing, sim­i­lar to de­pres­sion. The brain’s neu­ro­trans­mit­ters, such as sero­tonin and or dopamine, de­crease when pain oc­curs. The mean­ing you give to dis­ap­point­ment af­fects how you feel about it.

Re­fus­ing to per­son­alise the dis­ap­point­ment can help you re­cov­er. Dis­ap­point­ment isn’t in­her­ent­ly bad. Op­por­tu­ni­ty and growth can come from dis­ap­point­ing sit­u­a­tions. When I think about all the dis­ap­point­ments I have dealt with, and moved past, I am re­mind­ed of a song ca­lyp­son­ian Gyp­sy sang:

‘I know there are times when you have been down,

I know there are times when you feel that you can’t go on,

I know there are times don’t care what you do, the world and its ways seem to some­how

turn against you.

But you can­not win sit­ting down, you have to get up and be strong,

Cause you could on­ly be tram­pled when you’re on the ground.

pick yuh­self up, broth­er and dust yuh­self off, get yuh­self to­geth­er and start all over.’

In the very next verse, he re­places broth­er with sis­ter, so he’s singing for all of us, and then the cho­rus in­structs that we sing a hap­py song. Mu­sic is uni­ver­sal, and I trust that we all have a ‘hap­py song or hap­py songs’ which is even bet­ter. Play them on re­peat, while you dust your­selves off, and con­tin­ue to live your best life!