Do not fear disappointment

Disappointment comes in many different forms. In fact, life is full of disappointment. You missed your ticket to state track your senior year of high school by half of a second. Disappointment. You come home from college to find that your room has been converted into an office space. Disappointment. You drop the picture of you and your late grandmother to find the glass shattered into a million pieces. Disappointment.

There is a difference between experiencing disappointment and being the cause of disappointment. Your parents get a call at 1 a.m. from the police informing them that you were caught with alcohol and received an MIP. You are now the cause of disappointment.

From my experience being the cause of disappointment is one of the worst feelings. When I do something wrong, or mess something up, I would rather evoke anger than disappointment. It seems like there is a certain degree of satisfaction in anger.

I feel like I deserve to be yelled at, and it feels like I received the punishment that I deserved for my wrongdoing when I evoke anger. However, when I do something wrong and the person I wronged just looks down and says ‘I’m disappointed’ I feel 10 times worse.

When I was in junior high and high school, I ran cross-country, and I had the same coach all six years. He was a soft-spoken 5’4” marathon runner, and he was good at what he did.

Coach Johnson always pushed my teammates and I to compete at our best. He was there to cheer us on at the meets, and he ran right alongside us in practice.

I have never respected a single person in my life as much as I respected Coach Johnson, and it always felt like a privilege to run on his team. When we ran poorly he never yelled at us. Instead we could see the disappointment in his eyes, and that was terrible.

My teammates and I always talked about how terrible we felt when we disappointed coach, and this was one of the things that pushed us to work even harder for him in practice.

I think that this goes to show that disappointment has more power than anger. Anger is rash and reactionary. Not only that, but anger can also create space for dissidence in working and personal relationships, whereas disappointment is calculated.

I think that learning to deal with disappointment in a positive way is something that everybody needs to do. Sometimes fear of disappointing those around us drives us to say yes to anything we are asked to do. This can be overwhelming and cause stress.

This is hypocritical coming from me because I am the biggest pushover that I know. I have a hard time saying no, and because of this I sometimes find myself very overwhelmed.

Here is the advice I have to people that fear disappointing those around them: There is a difference between saying no and being disrespectful. Learn the difference. Learn to say no to things that will harm your mental health. Learn to say no to unnecessary rubbish. Learn to say no so you don’t overwhelm yourself, and don’t be afraid of disappointing people. They will get over it and life will go on.

I may sound like an entitled member of generation Y, but I think that being overly stressed is no way to spend this life. It’s short enough as it is, so use your no’s wisely, and use them to improve your quality of life.