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I remember when I was a kid and my family would go to Cedar Point amusement park. Leading up to that trip there was so much excitement. The night before I could barely sleep, but I loved it. I could have avoided those feelings and instead focused on all of the things that could have gone wrong and resulted in the trip being canceled, but I didn’t. I let myself feel the joy that came with anticipating and preparing for that day at the park.
So often I hear people saying things like:
I don’t want to get my hopes up.
I don’t want to get too excited.
I don’t want to be disappointed.
We say all of these things thinking that it will somehow prevent us from feeling bad when things don’t work out the way we wanted them to, but in doing so we keep ourselves from the good feelings that come with excitement. It’s not the best approach to ignore or avoid our desires by keeping our expectations low. The best way to manage your discomfort with disappointment is to let yourself feel it. Don’t run from it.
It is understandable that we as human beings would want to avoid being disappointed. Disappointment can be sad, frustrating, and even heartbreaking, but there is no way to avoid it. Even when we’ve tried to avoid feeling hopeful, or getting excited, when the outcome isn’t the one we wanted, we still feel upset, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. We haven’t actually extinguished our feelings, we just haven’t acknowledged them.
I was a huge fan of the show The Walking Dead, and hope was what kept that show on for as long as it was. No matter how bad things got, those people clung to the hope that things would get better, that they would find a place to call home, or that a cure would present itself. Hope kept them going.
What a life we would live if we always kept our hopes low. Being hopeful is a really beautiful part of being human. We need it.
Journal Prompt
What have you avoided being excited about because you feared the possibility of disappointment?
What was a time when you felt really disappointed and how did you manage that disappointment?
A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week
Finishing Things, from the Hi, It’s Elise newsletter written by Elise Loehnan.
“I’m Tired of Dealing With Incompetent Co-workers,” by Kimberly Brown in The Cut.
Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends? by Catherine Pearson in The New York Times.
The Murdochs. You can watch this show on HBOMax.
Thank you for this insight. I largely agree. But not entirely. What I’ve learned from my own experience is: Keep expectations low...but don’t stifle that little burning flame of hope. I think these two can coexist. I do notice when I lower my expectations it feels less severe when things don’t go my way. It also enables me to potentially see how maybe things ironically worked out in a much better way. But, I also see that flicker of hope and, when that flicker becomes temporarily extinguished, I agree with you: It’s healthy to allow yourself to feel that completely, in all its glorious pain/discomfort/disappointment.
My life in general right now hasn’t turned out the way I expected. But it’s interesting!
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Michael Mohr
‘The Incompatibility of Being Alive’
https://reallife82.substack.com/
Gold nuggets Thx