December 20, 2015 8:33 AM

What doesn't kill me wears me out

“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”

“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.”

“Sometimes when you get disappointment it makes you stronger.”

“Disappointment is a sticky one, because no one can steal contentment, joy, gratitude, or peace - we have to give it away.”

“I give and give, even when I get nothing back - and that sets me up for disappointment.”

One of the most difficult things to deal with in life is disappointment. We all have dreams, aspirations, and desires…and sometimes things don’t happen as you’d like them to. Wanting something, working towards it, and ultimately being thwarted is a tough pill to swallow. We all like to think that if we work hard, do the right things, and follow the rules, we’ll be rewarded…when in fact as often as not there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You can do everything right, go above and beyond, and be reliable, competent, and knowledgeable…and still not realize the reward you believe you deserve.

I’ve spent the past several months keeping my nose to the grindstone, doing the right things, working as hard as I could, all the while thinking and believing that my efforts would pay off…and I was given no reason to believe otherwise. I’ve done everything I could to be what was needed when it was needed. Evenings, weekends, holidays- I’ve given up a lot in an effort to reach my goal. My sights were always on the prize I sought, and I (evidently mistakenly) assumed that if I did what needed to be done, the right and fair thing would be done by me. Work hard, keep your nose to the grindstone, and the rewards will follow.

Turns out life doesn’t always work that way. When you control what’s within your power, sometimes people who control things you cannot have agendas of their own that may, or may not, have nothing to do with you. Sometimes you can bust your ass, establish yourself as a dependable, go-to guy- only to discover in the end that your contribution wasn’t held to be of sufficient value. Sometimes you learn the hard way that what you did may well have been taken for granted.

Now I find myself wondering all those months being reliable and industrious were a waste, a quixotic quest in pursuit of something I never really had a shot at in the first place but lacked the perspective to recognize. Maybe I just missed the signals. Or perhaps it was just easier to focus on the things I could control and believe there would be a reward when all was said and done.

The challenge now is simple: What do I do with my feelings of disappointment? How do I channel my discouragement and, yes, anger? How does a mature, rational adult deal with emotions which, if followed, might lead me to burn down the house (figuratively speaking)? How do I manage my wounded pride? More than anything, I feel truly, deeply stupid and delusional for working so hard in the belief it would be rewarded? I never assumed anything, but I made a concerted effort to be positive and optimistic, and was never given reason to believe optimism was unwarranted. Or perhaps my optimism and hope led me to see what I wanted to and ignore what didn’t mesh with my goal.

The truth is that life is full of disappointment. Relationships end, jobs are lost, opportunities squandered, yadayadayada. Nothing is promised, nothing is guaranteed. Sometimes you just have to put on your big boy pants and soldier on as best you can. It can be easy to begin thinking that because you’ve done X well and for an extended period of time, opportunity Y should come your way. When that doesn’t happen, when it doesn’t work out the way you think/believe it should, or when you watch that opportunity slip from your grasp and accrue to someone else for reasons that make no sense, it’s tough. Warranted or not, humans develop hopes and expectations, and when that happens disappointment can, and often does, follow closely behind.

So here I sit, disappointed, upset, and trying very hard not to feel like a failure. I’m trying to discern the best, most mature and adult path to follow. I want to be kind, understanding, and forgiving. I want to feel like I can manage my penchant for assuming the mantle of victimhood. More than anything, I want to act as if nothing of what happened matters. The problem is that I’m a lousy poker player- and it absolutely does matter. I can’t pretend I’m feeling something I’m not, nor am I able to camouflage my feelings. It’s why I don’t play games that involve bluffing or deception.

I don’t have a lot of answers at this point. What I have are questions and uncertainty and confusion about how to move forward…but I also know that there’s no rush, no timetable I must adhere to. What I have to do is to figure out how to process and channel my disappointment in a way that doesn’t satisfy in the short term while burning down the farm over the long haul. I’ve burned too many bridges in my life, and it took me a long, long time to understand that the only person burned is the one lighting the matches- me.

As much as I hate the prospect, there will be an element of swallowing my pride. When, how much, and how that happens remains to be seen, but I know it has to happen. It will get easier as the days and weeks pass, and I suspect that time will demonstrate that this is not the worst thing that could have happened. Life has a way of throwing curve balls (and I never could hit a breaking pitch), but I’ve learned that what seems like a tragedy one day may well be revealed to be a blessing the next.

A number of friends have told me I deserve so much better, and it’s difficult to argue with that sentiment. In the end, I learned that my efforts and commitment were largely taken for granted for reasons I will likely never fully know. Perhaps it’s my age, my gender, or some other quality that made me undesirable. It may just be that working hard, being committed, and doing what I was supposed to do to the best of my ability would never have been enough. I could “What it…?” myself from here until next Thanksgiving and still not have a clear and understandable answer. Life isn’t always something with happy endings and heroes riding off into the sunset. Sometimes the endings are ill-defined, difficult to understand, and/or not at all what might have been expected.

The only option left to me is to somehow move forward in the best way I can. I don’t know what that means, but I know that feeling sorry for myself isn’t an appealing- or even available- path. I think I’m well within my rights to feel angry, confused, and disappointed, but in the end the question becomes one of what I’ll do with those feelings. When I cut through the emotion, I know that this moment represents a setback and not a defeat.

I have no idea what happens next, but I don’t need to know that right now. I just need to process what’s happened in a way that will allow me to move on…and I will.

Stay tuned.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 20, 2015 8:33 AM.

The best argument for being good without God you'll see today was the previous entry in this blog.

If this doesn't buy affection, nothing will is the next entry in this blog.

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