The Roots of Disappointment

This week, the theme for my once-a-week personal entry is disappointment. Most significantly I'd like to define it, and search for its source. Trust me, this entry will not disappoint, but do not hold your expectations too highly.

In my opinion, disappointment is the feeling we get after something we were anticipating to go a certain way, results differently from what we had expected. For example, athletes disappoint when they are expected to have a great season and they put up weak stats. In the same sense, businesses disappoint when they prove unworthy for investments.

Most significantly, the source of disappointment is expectation. I decided to blog about this specific topic because I'm known to expect something to go a certain way. Then, I'm more prone to become disappointed when it doesn't work out. If we accepted this as the truth, would disappointment be eliminated if we all lowered our expectations? While this may be true, I think disappointment can also result from regret. Regret results when a person looks back on his/her life and decides that he/she should have done something differently. Although lowering expectations may defend against expectation-rooted disappointment, one may be more disappointed later in life about the risks they did not take. Although this type disappointment is less common among other cases, it is far more serious, because we can all cheer ourselves up with a bowl of ice cream after our expectations are disappointed, but nobody can go back in time and take that risk that they were to afraid to take. Essentially, fear of disappointment may be worse than disappointment itself. We can all move on if our risks or expectations disappoint, but we cannot go back in time and take the chances that we were always too afraid to take.

Sometimes I try to lower my expectations in order to feel happier if things go right yet content even if things do not work out. Although this satisfies my immediate emotional needs, it simultaneously injures my aspirations to be successful and my ambitions to be the best that I can be. Life is short, so we all need to reach for the stars before our bodies are buried in the ground. We all need to have goals, and we should never let the fear of disappointment stand in the way. Things will almost never go exactly how I plan, so I should simply accept that. Disappointment is an important part of becoming a mature and upstanding adult. As we experience disappointment more and more, we learn to take it with a grain of salt, and we do our best to dream even when we feel defeated.