S**t happens, right? Indeed it does. No way around it. Things happen that are unexpected…and ultimately disappointing. If that were the end of it, I wouldn’t be writing this blog because if people actually understood that s**t happens, they would be able to handle it, process it, remember it, and prevent the almost universal reaction to the s**t that has happened. It would be great if people could really understand that things don’t always go as you expect them to go, that you are naturally and understandably disappointed in what happened…or didn’t happen, and then find a good way to accept the loss and the accompanying disappointment, together with the emotion attached to disappointment without allowing disappointment to deteriorate into anger, avoidance, anger, assault, and addiction.
Since Deb and I have traveled quite a bit out of country, we have had the opportunity of learning about other countries together with their customs, many of which are substantially different from what we have in the U.S. So, we have learned to expect the unexpected, the wrong turns, the mistakes, and the simple misunderstandings that occur when you are in a different culture, much less a different country with a different language, different currency, and different physical/emotional customs. We have such differences in subcultures in the U.S. and in Newfoundland, Canada where we lived for four years. When seeing someone in my office of Asian descent, Latino background, African-American heritage, or nonbinary gender, I have learned to pay close attention to cultural and subcultural differences although I readily admit that my understanding of cultural and subcultural matters is minimal at best. I’m pretty good at seeing and understanding differences in personality type, personality temperament, developmental differences, and gender differences albeit certainly with an orientation of being an American. Facing a different culture, even a subculture can bring a good deal of disappointment, whether from misunderstanding someone, being misunderstood by someone, or simply not liking some part of the culture because it is irritating. But disappointment is not limited to culture or personality factors.
I think disappointment comes every day, usually several times every day, and it is a central piece of what it means to be a person, to be a person with emotion, to be a person with thought, and to be a person who loves something. Deb and I are just back from a lovely trip to Europe, starting in Malta (and accompanying island of Gozo), which lies just south of Sicily, which itself lists just south of mainland Italy. Let me give you an example of one day that Deb and I had during our recent trip.
- The day started out looking good as we intended to hike a good part of Gozo, a relatively easy hike without a lot of steps or hills to climb, almost all of the hike being on the seaside. We were disappointed to learn that the “bed and breakfast” didn’t serve breakfast. OK, but disappointing.
- We came to a place in our hike where it was unclear as to which way we should go because of the lack of signage. (The Maltese islands do not have much in the way of signage, whether of hiking paths, roads, or even villages.) Disappointing to not really know whether you should go right or left. We chose right. We chose wrong. We were disappointed to find that the path eventually deteriorated.
- We found our way to a small village and asked for directions from a generous Maltese fellow whom we encountered as he was about to enter his house. He directed us in a certain direction. We thought we understood him and proceeded to take our best guess of following his directions. Wrong again. Disappointed again. Now we were in another village with another choice of direction.
- We proceeded further down what seemed like the best path to get to a place that we had read about. Eventually, we saw our destination down a mountain (high hill) just on the east coast of Gozo. About halfway down the path we discovered that we had taken the wrong path and needed to forage out way through various rocks and crevices to get to the sea. Disappointed again. Not bad though. Just disappointed.
- We stayed at the seaside for a cup of espresso and then began our trek back to our lodging, and oops, another wrong turn and then needing to retrace our steps. Disappointed again.
- We eventually got to the larger village on the island but were pretty worn out having hiked about 7 hours, and hoped we could find a taxi to take us the last couple of kilometers to our temporary home. Couldn’t find one. Disappointed again.
- When we finally got home truly ready to eat dinner, we couldn’t find a place open. Note it was about 6 PM. Nothing open. Eventually, someone told us that restaurants don’t open until 7 “or so” (usually about 7:15 at the earliest). Disappointed. And hungry.
Note all these disappointments, pretty much all of which having to do with our misunderstanding of the Maltese culture, like lack of signage, different language (Maltese is a language of Arabic/Italian/French heritage not spoken anywhere else.) These disappointments were essentially unavoidable because of our limited understanding of the landscape, the seascape, the language, and the culture. So, we allowed ourselves to have these various disappointments and trek on. Along the way, however,, we also had many experiences that were quite pleasing, and even astonishing: the guy who gave us some directions was very kind and generous; the seascapes that we did see off the standard path were stupendous and probably not seen by many off-islanders; the destination at the east coast was marvelous; the espresso was great (I get a cappuccino. Deb gets the real stuff.); we were not hurt; we had a wonderful hike; we had our standard lunch of bread, cheese, fruit, and wine; and we got home safe. Then when we finally got to eat, we had a wonderful meal with great service. And the next morning the matron of the B & B set out a bit of breakfast for us knowing that we had been a bit disappointed the day before.
So, what’s this disappointment all about? Expectations for sure. Misunderstandings for sure. But more important than that, a deeply felt awareness that we needed to be disappointed, allow for the emotion of sadness to occur, and then see how the disappointment and sadness waned on their own. Much different from what seems to be the American way: get irritated, get angry, or God forbid, get even in some way. Not that such things didn’t cross our minds, but we have worked on this central theme of the necessity of sadness, that we migrated the waters of disappointment pretty well. I could bore you with every other day of our two-week travels replete with disappointments every day, like taking a left turn when I should have taken a right turn, both literally and figuratively. Thank goodness for the prevalence of roundabouts in Europe where you can get back to where you should have been easily.
I’ve been thinking about disappointment as coming in levels, like maybe 1 to 10. I’m using the nomenclature of D-1 to D-10 depending on the significance of the disappointment. Like, the disappointment of taking the wrong turn on the hike is maybe a D-2; the disappointment of no breakfast at the B & B maybe a D-3; the disappointment of the taxi maybe a D-1. I think it is important to allow for as much disappointment, as much emotion, and as much time as is needed to finish the disappointment phase of the day. Could be seconds (taxi), minutes (hike misstep), or more minutes (B & B breakfast).
Then there was the disappointment that occurred to Deb (and somewhat to me) that occurred at a train station in Florence, Italy. We were waiting for the train, which was a bit late, and Deb ran for another espresso. About that time I thought it right to take both of our luggage rollers up the track to train car # 10 where we were supposed to board. Wrong decision. I thought it was right and would save Deb from having to carry the luggage. But when she got back to where we had parted, I was nowhere to be found. She told me later that she walked up and down the gateway looking for me. Finally, I saw her about 4 minutes before the train was about to leave and instructed her from about 100 meters away to get on the train where she was (about train car 7) and walk through cars 7, 8, and 9 to meet me at car 10. Minor disappointment to me because I thought she would understand that I had moved up to car 4. Maybe a D-3 for me. Big disappointment to Deb. Maybe a D-7 or D-8. It took many apologizes, much sadness, much restraint of understandable irritation for this D-7/8 to finish. Maybe an hour. But it did finish.
This “finishing” is not what often happens when people get disappointed. They get irritated. They get angry. They get even. And they explain. Yes, they explain, explain, and explain. This is the stuff of arguments, which all have the essence of, “The way I see it is….” I certainly wanted to explain my perspective of what I did, but restrained myself from doing so. Deb needed to explain how she was upset at not finding me and not knowing where I was, whether on the train, off the train, or God forbid, somewhere else in some kind of trouble. D-8, I think. She did explain a bit, and I did a bit, but mostly we just felt the disappointment until we were no longer disappointed. Hard work, but it is work that we continue to learn to do. What are the other options: not good, not productive, and “delusional” as we have suggested in our book. Anger is the delusion that I can change the past by being angry; anxiety is the delusion that I can change the future by being anxious. Reality is disappointment. And sadness. And finishing. Eventually, what is important in such things? S**t happens, good things happen just as often, and s**t ends…if we let it end.
Consider your day and the disappointments that come every single day, some small, some large. Almost all of them ones of misunderstanding, missteps, or miscalculation.