Giving disappointment its due
Some of our dreams won’t be fulfilled. While this may be a mercy, that’s no consolation.
I once applied for a job I was told was mine to lose. The closer I got to getting it, the more I dreamed—looking at homes to buy and schools for kids to attend, even planning good-bye parties. I imagined a new life. When I didn’t get the job, I was crushed.
The disappointment went on for years. I found myself reliving it over and over, telling anyone who would listen. Bitterness set in, and a list of enemies grew—all the people who’d torpedoed my dream. The disappointment changed the way I related to the life I still had, darkening a dream job already in place and overshadowing blessings long ago bestowed. I began to regret my surroundings and resent a life I now felt stuck in. Disappointment did all this. I could not face the disappointment as disappointment.
Not all disappointments are so devastating or so dramatic. Sometimes it’s less the dream job torpedoed and more the slow boil of a career playing out in disappointing ways. You look around and realize the life you’re living isn’t the one you signed up for. Well-laid plans fizzle out. Relationships you banked on careen off course. Opportunities dry up. Life happens.
