I resist the concept of disappointment. It brings back all of those black clouds of being “talked to” as a child and doesn’t feel at all zen-like.
I especially dislike the concept of being disappointed in a person. It feels controlling and somehow usurps that person’s identity. What right do I have to be so vested in who they are, how they act or what they express that I would be DISAPPOINTED. Really!
My aversion doesn’t always eliminate the feeling, however. And so, I must rename it, rationalize it into something else, jolly myself out of it or just deny it altogether. Any or all of these seem to work fairly well because I rarely think of myself as disappointed.
It’s hard to avoid the whole “build-up for a letdown” thing, though. Often those things I most look forward to just don’t live up. Excitement building to a crescendo probably carries some intrinsic core of deflation. Whether it’s idolizing a person or dying to go to a party, it doesn’t usually work out so well. But it’s hard not to fast-forward into images of bliss.
It all comes down to expectations and hope, doesn’t it? Neither of those are high on the list of a Buddhist philosophy and I can see the reason. If I place expectations on a person or event, I am setting myself up for the dreaded feeling. If I hope to elicit a response or if I manipulate events toward my own goals, then I’m certainly not detached from outcome.
Oh, Pshaw!
I find that I am not superhuman nor highly enlightened. I like things to go my way. So when life go sideways, I’ll just have to think of another word for it. In spite of lessons I learn along the way, sometime things just suck!
I’ll meditate on that one…
xxoo
Hmm today I have been wondering whether and how to express my disappointment with someone without giving the sense that I had the right to expect something of them… so let me know whether you managed to come up with an apt renaming.
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It’s a question, isn’t it? I’m still wondering if we have any right…
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