Disappointments!

When you think about it, all of us have disappointments.
Not necessarily, as I heard one person say, regrets.
But certainly disappointments.

And it's interesting. Because the majority, if not all, disappointments come about by, and through, and because of other people. Think about it.

Too often we explain our disappointments away by taking on self-blame, or making excuses that we weren't trying hard enough, or it wasn't meant to be - meaning, in part, that it was our fault being in the wrong place at the wrong time., or even worse that we didn't deserve what we had hoped for. Self-doubts come so easily with disappointments.

Or as in our career path, someone else "got in first". The fact that they were perhaps the choice of the employer (or friend when it comes to our friendship circle) and that that choice had never been ours in the first place sometimes eludes us. Oh yes, we can wish for, and want something so badly it hurts. But that doesn't take away the fact that not everything is there for us to take, when we want it!

It's the same with relationships. It doesn't matter whether it's a marriage, a friendship or even between people within a family. We may never really know them. And it comes as a bit of a shock to think that they don't really know us!

We, and they, may think we're as close as being under each other's skin, but we're not! We're two (or more) totally independent human beings. And the differences are huge.

We can believe in each other. We can trust each other. We can rely and protect each other. But we may never know each other. Everyone has secrets. Some deeply hidden. Some as a matter of pretense. We all know of people who "stretch" the truth; they tell what they profess is a "fib" and before long it is a big lie and then they have to add ammunition to that lie, otherwise they'll get caught out. Quite often these "fibs" relate to the lives of these human beings. Is it that they need to be seen as "super-heroes"? Do we sometimes fall into the same bad habits of stretching the truth?

Sadly it's the same in relationships. You may have been with a person for 12 months or 20 years, and then suddenly you discover that one or two things they've told you as being truth are discounted by more than one other person who all provide a similar story to each other. You begin to question whether everything you've been originally told was true or not. You begin to question yourself. And you begin to ask yourself whether you've been "taken in" again; or whether it's all your fault that no one tells you the truth.

It's all a matter of perspectives. If you are safe and secure in your own self-feelings and you trust your own astuteness and your own ability to know what is right and what is best for you, then you're on the right side. If you realise that people WILL disappoint you (just as much as you will sometimes disappoint them and yourself) and get on with life as you see it should be lived - ethically, principled, and honest - then you've already established that maybe you'll get hurt and disappointed again and again by people and events out of your control, but you're your own person. No one can take that away from you. No one can (or should try to) make you feel less a person. You are you, and everything within you and about you is unique.

Turn that uniqueness into something beautiful, serene, and untouchable by disappointments that may come upon you at any time by believing in yourself.

When disappointments do come, and they will, allow yourself to go through the processes of accepting and dealing with them, and then stand tall, be yourself, and strive forward.