For months, you have looked forward to the yearly fall festival, which comes at the same time each year. The morning of the first day of the festival, you wake up barely able to get out of bed. On top of it, you can almost feel the sensation of the pouring rain pounding on the roof. For thse two reasons, you say home but are sick and not just with the flu.
You have spent hours preparing for your audition, careful to choose an appropriate song in your key. You practice and update your dancing as well as do background research for the musical in question. You audition with confidence, but never get a call back.
You loyally support a nonprofit, spending endless hours getting the word out about its worthwhile work and mission. You enjoy a good rapport with its Director and she shows her appreciation, often, for your support. Then you apply for a volunteer position with the nonprofit, doing all you can to prove your character and integrity and competence. But you learn that your application is declined! You feel betrayed.
You are excited to get together with a friend whom you have not seen in awhile. You get yourself ready, dressing up just for that friend. You go to the designated meeting spot, but this friend never shows up, even after 30 minutes. Crestfallen, you return home and later call this friend who never returns your call. You feel slapped in the face.
It's very cold outside, but you are in no mood to fix breakfast this morning. You take down everyone's order for the local McDonald's, get your cash together and get in your car to prepare. However, despite multiple efforts to get your car started, your car won't start. Period. Disgusted, you get out and head back indoors.
Your loved one has been missing for about six months and you are desperate for answers! One day, you hear from Law Enforcement that a promising tip has been received and it appears to be a strong lead but they say no more. Cautiously optimistic, you wait for the big phone call; you get it, for sure, but are told that it is another dead end! You are crushed.
You are excited and living in bliss when you go to your doctor and learn that you are pregnant after about eight years of trying, and dashed hopes and negative pregnancy tests. You tell everyone this glad news and start shopping for baby clothes and other baby things as well as maternity clothes. One day, you experience a bleed that looks like a menstrual period. You are devastated beyond words to learn that you have had a miscarriage!
You apply for a coveted job, preparing your resume, providing references, work samples, and do everything you can to convince the employer that you are trustworthy, competent and the best person for the job. You give what you believe to be a good interview. You wait and when you hear nothing back, you nervously dial the number of the company. You hear that the job has been filled by someone else! Crestfallen and depressed, your first urge is to order a chocolate milkshake, your comfort food of choice, from your local fast food outlet, and then vent to your best friend.
You cast your vote for your favorite Presidential candidate, so sure that this person would win, based on the media coverage of poll results. However, the following morning, you hear that the candidate is about to give a concession speech, meaning your candidate didn't win. Disgusted, you wonder why you even bothered to go out and vote.
As a child, you were told about a character called Santa Claus, who you were told got all the good boys and girls presents. You believed that this character actually came down chimneys of all families to bring all the boys and girls their presents. You leave out cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. But before you reach your teens, your parent or guardian tells you, "You know, now that you are getting older, you need to know that there is no Santa Claus and that it is us your parents who give you gifts. Christmas is a time for giving, not receiving, so you need to start giving gifts, too." Crestfallen that your childhood fantasy is over, you wonder why you were told about this character in the first place. You may also wonder what else you may have been lied to about.
What do all these scenarios, which are only examples of so many countless others, have in common? One thing: they all involve disappointment. Disappointments are cherished expectations that are not met, that are dashed or don't come to pass.On its face, most disappointments may inspire little empathy or concern. You are likely to hear something like, "Life is disappointing, deal with it and get over it!" We all endure countless disappoinments in life, many minor and some major. Most disappointments are considered a part of life. Would many typical disappointments even pass the "Who cares?" test? And why am I covering THIS subject in a blogspot?
Actually, a book was written about disappointment many years ago, which I owned at one time but have since donated for space reasons. The point is, the author saw this topic as worthy of a book. At the writing of this blog post, it is Christmas season and a time of very high expectations, especially for many typical children and young people who expect to wake up to gifts under the tree. True, because of an ailing economy, they may not get as many gifts as in better times, but they expect to see gifts there nevertheless. Even adults may have expectations that because this is the time when we focus on giving, that people will be somehow nicer, more compassionate and more giving at this time of the year. This is why so many places of worship and nonprofits increase their requests for donations. But then, why is depression more pronounced at this time of the year and why do families tend to fight even more during times like this? Could it have something to do with all our expectations of holidays, especially Christmas (Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan or how you celebrate this time of year and what you call it).
The truth is that we expect much out of holidays, especially Christmas or whatever we call this winter holiday. We spend weeks, maybe months preparing. We prepare special food. We travel and go to great lengths to get together with those whom we see little of during the rest of the year. We take time off from our work or from our regular business. We proclain the virtues and values of this time and have slogans for it. We hold special traditions, which are noted even in special music set aside for this time of year. We hold a host of special events, including worship services. All this is because we hold high expectations for Christmas. And when this special season is over, many of us feel let down.We hear the term "the Christmas letdown" or "the post-holiday blues" to try to explain this. It seems that, no matter what our experience of the holidays, many among us experience a letdown after they are over.
I experienced a very recent, personally painful disappointment where I practically re-lived my past in my self-disclosure about it to those involved, in the effort to gain their understanding and to convince them of my honesty and character. All to no avail. For privacy reasons, I can't reveal any more about the nature of the experience. But it was awful. As it has occurred around this Christmas season, it feels even worse, showing that I'm a product of my free culture of high expectations for this Christmas season. Some people will declare, "The way to avoid disappointment is to expect nothing, to anticipate nothing." But who wants to live that way, to give up all ambition and aspiration to avoid having these dashed? What an empty, bleak existence this would be!
You may have heard disappointments be referred to as "God's appointments." That is, is is possible to see God's hand in any disappointment and to know that even though one doors has be slammed shut in your face, another door, around the corner, may open up for you. But when we are enduring major disappointments when we had our hearts set in one direction and our dreams are crushed, it hurts. There are many petty disappointments and there are not-so-minor disappointments. But all of them illustrate the most uncomfortable but necessary truth that God very often says "Wait!" or even "No!" to us in life, instead of "Yes!"
While it hurts to be disappointed, I think many would agree that it hurts even more to give up hope and pressing forward toward your dreams.
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