My wife and I got some disappointing news yesterday. Everything is good, but we had been planning something that unfortunately was no longer going to come to pass. While these things happen, it is always a shame when we have to welcome disappointment into our midst.
While we never want to be disappointed, these types of situations always provide us with a choice. We can either wallow in the negativity and feel bad for ourselves or for others, or we can choose to make the most of the situation, and prove to ourselves that we can always find the best part of any given scenario.
So, after chatting about the situation, we decided that we would choose to be positive, and welcome the opportunity to do something different, and to have just as enjoyable a time as if we hadn’t received the disappointing news.
In life, whether in our professional spheres or our personal ones, disappointment can come regularly. But it is an emotion that we control, and a feeling that we often bring upon ourselves. The value (and challenge) of that is we have to be willing to change the focus of a disappointing situation, and see it for what it is: simply an emotion that we have built up as a result of something that may have been entirely out of our hands.
Like all other emotions, we must remember to welcome it as it keeps us aware of our feelings, but we also must realize that it is within our power to accept or reject the disappointment.
This scenario was a great reminder for why, whenever possible, I choose to reject disappointment and instead, ask myself, “What now?” and prepare to find a suitable answer.