How do you deal with disappointment?
Our house is built on a hill. It’s a nice location. We have a nice view from the top of our hill, and we get a nice breeze to cool things off in the summer. Unfortunately, it’s also a perfect location for woodchucks who like to burrow into the side of the hill.
Woodchucks can cause a lot of damage. So, when a woodchuck digs a home in our yard, I set a trap to catch it and take it to a different location. The other day, I saw a woodchuck in the yard, so I had to set up the trap. A few days later, I checked the trap, but instead of a woodchuck, I had caught a skunk.
The moral of the story? Like Mick Jagger says: “You can’t always get what you want.” I wanted to trap the pesky woodchuck, but instead I caught a skunk.
Life is like that sometimes. You have dreams, but the dreams never materialize. Maybe you’re stuck in a thankless job that doesn’t pay well. Maybe your marriage didn’t turn out the way you thought it would. Maybe you’ve been diagnosed with a serious health problem. You didn’t ask for your life to turn out this way, but that’s the way it is. The question is: How do you deal with these kinds of disappointments?
A very common suggestion is to lower your expectations. And it is important to keep our expectations realistic, but there are many situations where simply lowering your expectations won’t work. My purpose for setting a trap was to catch a woodchuck. Anything less is not desirable. So lowering my expectations doesn’t help when I don’t get what I want.
Then there are major disappointments. You were flying high when suddenly, without warning, your life takes a nosedive and crash lands. It’s as if you turned a corner only to find yourself on a bumpy road or worse—life has taken you down a dead end street with no way out. Life doesn’t give you the choice of a U-turn. Life only goes in one direction. There are no exit ramps.
So, what do you do when you find yourself on a very bumpy road? What do you do when life sends you down an unexpected path filled with disappointments? Let me start by giving you some things you should not do.
First, don’t try to hide or run away. Some people turn to alcohol or drugs to deaden the pain of disappointment, but you can’t ignore the problem, nor can you run away from the problem.
Second, don’t blame yourself. Don’t say: “If only I had or hadn’t done this or that, maybe things would have turned out differently.” William Shatner once said, “Regret is the worst human emotion.”
Let’s say you’ve been diagnosed with cancer. You say, “If only hadn’t smoked cigarettes, maybe I wouldn’t have got cancer.” Although that might be true, saying, “If only. . .” doesn’t help. Feeling sorry for yourself or thinking you’re a bad person won’t help. Feelings of regret won’t change what’s happened.
Third, don’t play the blame game by blaming someone or something else for your troubles. When God confronted Adam about his sin of disobedience, Adam blamed the woman, and he blamed God. Adam said: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate (Genesis 3:12).” Don’t blame someone or something else for your situation, especially don’t blame God. Although God is in control of our lives, God normally allows life to take its natural course. Only occasionally does God intervene. In other words, “Stuff happens.” Life happens. Don’t blame God for the way things have turned out.
Everyone, to one degree or another, has experienced disappointment. We’ve all been let down. We’ve all been hurt when things didn’t turn out the way we hoped. Believe it or not, even God has had his share of disappointments. The Bible shows a God who is sometimes frustrated and even angry with the way things have turned out. Sometimes, even God is disappointed. So if you’re disappointed or frustrated with the way life is going, remember, you’re not the only one.
Now, let me offer some suggestions about what you should do.
First, accept your situation as a normal part of life. Your life may have been going along nicely, then someone or something jams a monkey wrench into the gears, and life comes to a screeching halt. This is the way life is. Life is like baseball. When you’re up at bat, you’re hoping for an easy pitch right over the plate, but instead, life throws you a curve ball. The truth is life is always throwing curve balls.
Second, face the situation honestly and be honest about your feelings of frustration and disappointment. One way to face the problem honestly is to write it down. Some people write their thoughts and feelings in a journal or diary. Writing down your thoughts and feeling is a healthy and positive exercise in self-help. Let me add, that if the pain is deep and constant, you may want to do more than write it down. You may want to talk to a friend or counselor. Talking about our feelings of disappointment can help put us on the right track.
Third, try to learn from the situation. Hardships teach us a lot about life. God allows us to go through difficulties is so that we can learn from them. God will use your difficulty to make you stronger. The Bible says that God allows hardship “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:7).” God doesn’t want you to trust in your own abilities. God wants you to find his power.
Fourth, you will be able relate to other people who are going through the same or similar situations. The Apostle Paul said that because he had gone through hardship, he could relate to the pain of other people and, in turn, give them comfort. Paul said, “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation (2 Corinthians 1:6).”
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