This is during my days spent in the ashram when I was on a break from the hectic corporate liftsyle. It was cold and damp as Ii walked up the steps to Sham’s room – my new friend in the ashram. The weather outside definitely called for a hot cup of coffee. We took our coffee mugs and drag one each to the balcony.
Starting the conversation, Shyam said “Are you k? You look a little upset.
I was actually and he had made a correct judgement definitely. I said, “Well yes I m little disappointed, as I had expected to get through an international assignment, but I don’t think it has worked in favour.
Taking his first sip of coffee he said, “You know most of our lives are spent, in one form or another, in the pursuit of happiness. And we find it, too, in temporary forms - a new experience, a new relationship, a new assignment, a vacation, etc etc yet a lasting sense of fulfilment and satisfaction may continue to elude us as we learn what doesn't make us happy.”
In search of happiness, its quiet an observable fact that we attach sometimes conditions, sometimes expectations and sometimes faulty and wishful desires of how we’d like each incident / act to turn out to be. Whenever we do something in life with an expectation of how we’d like it to turn out, we risk experiencing disappointment. Disappointment often leaves us feeling deflated with its message that things don’t always turn out the way we want. When things don’t go the way we had envisioned, we may feel a range of emotions from slightly let down to depressed or even angry. Whether we feel disappointed by ourselves, a friend, or life in general, disappointment is always a tough feeling to experience. Still, it is a natural part of life.
As like any other feeling, is just momentary and it shall also pass by. As we consider other disappointments in our life and how we have moved past them, we may even see that in some cases what happened was actually better in the long run than what we had wanted to happen. The more we are able to accept how we are feeling and process it, the sooner we will move into new emotional territory.
Disappointment is also just a state of mind, and there are many ways of dealing with it when we find ourselves in its presence. We might direct our feelings inward towards ourselves or outward towards other people or the universe in general. It is at this time that you must let the emotions come to the fore and not keep it in. Cry your heart out if needed and get rid of the sorrow and feelings of being victimized by life. We might even want to write about the experience of being disappointed—the situation that preceded it, what we were hoping would happen, and what did happen.
As Morrie says in his book ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’, “it’s only horrible if you see it that way. It’s horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it’s also wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye”. Adding further when he smiles to Mitch and says “Not everyone is so lucky.”
The beauty of disappointment, though, is that it brings us into alignment with reality so that we don’t get stuck for too long in the realm of how things might have been. It provides us a bridge to its other side where the acceptance of reality, wisdom, and the energy to begin again can be found.
As again how says Morrie, “Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself - All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is. Same for all other emotions be it loneliness, depression or disappointment. As he says: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely – but eventually be able to say, “All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I am not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.”
Smilingly, he said, “so my dear friend chill .. it’s been a while now that you have experienced the feeling of disappointment … now its time to switch to some other state of mind … choice is yours to pick which one J
