Dealing with Disappointment

You are one of the finalists. You wait. You anticipate hearing your name called. The moment arrives. Somebody else’s name is called. You shake your head. You think it must be a mistake. You listen again for your name to be called. Silence.

For the last two months, I have waited to hear the good news that I was getting a certain job. It had to be. Fate had stepped in. All the pieces seemed to fit. The phone call for the interview came out of the blue. The executive director of the company called me. The salary was perfect. Even though the position was out of town, I was told I could work from home most of the time. I was asked if I like to travel, and I do. The interview went well. I was just waiting for the confirmation that I was the one.

I wasn’t the one. I found out today.

I feel like a home hit by a bomb. There is rubble everywhere.

This isn’t the first time I have had to deal with disappointment. It won’t be the last, but I have learned a lot from times like these.

The first lesson I have learned is that I can’t build on the rubble. After the initial bad news, I may have to go down even more. I have to get rid of all of the disappointment before I can start building again. It’s sort of a like a house of cards. There is no sense working with the few cards that remain. You might as well knock them down and start from zero. You have to clear away the crud.

But you aren’t really starting from zero. You have learned how to build your dreams up to a certain point. All you have to do is figure out how to finish it off.

I learn a lot from nature. The sun sets only to rise again the next day. One dream fades away; another grows.

There is no use wasting your energy on what might have been. There are so many “what will be” moments to prepare for.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not painting a pretty picture. I’m not trying to rationalize away my feelings. I am really disappointed right now. I have learned that before I can clean the toilet and get on with things, I have to flush it first. I am in that moment when I am flushing away all the waste. Tomorrow I will start again.

There are other hills to climb, other treasures to find, other victories to experience. There is no use dwelling on the failure, except to realize that I have learned from it.

It reminds me of an experience I had years ago. I went through a divorce that really hurt. I pressed on in life. A few years later, I got a job with Softball Canada. Some of the circumstances surrounding my getting the job were more than chance. I was going to the world championship in Taiwan. We had planned exhibition games in Japan before the event. Then we got the word from our Minister of Sport that he had agreed that we would play in China. He did this without our permission, but we didn’t have the choice. While we were in China, we were taken to the Great Wall. While I was walking along this structure, a voice said to me, “Your divorce wasn’t nice, but you have always wanted to walk on the Great Wall of China. While it would have been good to save your marriage, you wouldn’t have been here if it had.”

Great things often come out of great disappointment. The phoenix does rise out of the ashes. However, if you don’t look for it with expectation, it never will.