Disappointment

Life is full of disappointments. I learned this at a very young age.

One of the very first disappointments that I can remember was that of a toy. I don't quite exactly remember the toy, I think it was an action figure of some sorts, but it wasn't even a toy that I owned--it was one of my friends toys. I remember that I had seen this toy advertised on television multiple times and it had been ingrained in my little mind that if I had this toy, I would be happy. I mean, the thoughts of what would and wouldn't make me happy weren't something that consumed the every day thoughts of my little mind, but all that I knew is that I would play with this toy SO HARD if I got it and I would have a great time. Of course, this was a very expensive toy (the manufacturers had to make the toys expensive to fund their extremely large advertising campaign) so naturally my parents didn't buy it for me. I do remember, however, going over to my little spoiled friends house one day to see that he had this toy. Right away, when I found out that he had it, I was so excited and I wanted to play with it with him (SO HARD), so we did. After about two minutes I realized that the toy wasn't everything that I thought it was. It was a very cheap material and it didn't behave the way that the commercial portrayed it did. It's arms didn't have a full range of motion, the noises that it made were dumb, and it's missiles didn't shoot very far--it was a big flop. I just remember being so disappointed in the fact that I thought there was this amazing toy that would make me happy, and it turned out to be so cheap and boring.

Of course, as life progressed, I wasn't so much concerned with cheap toys any longer, and my attention turned to other things. These other things still continue to disappoint me. Movies that I had heard great things abut disappoint me, people who I thought would be great friends disappoint me, girls disappoint me, my expectations disappoint me, going on vacations disappoint me, the future that I thought I would have disappoints me, certain experiences that everyone told me I should have, have turned out to be rather boring and bland. Sure, maybe a little bit of pleasure was gained from some of these, but all of the hype that had been built up in my mind just kind of crumpled under the boringness of reality.

The worst thing to be disappointed in is another person. Putting your hopes in someone else only to soon have the realization that they didn't behave how you expected, or they let you down when you were counting on them, or they betrayed you, hurts badly. How have I come to deal with these disappointments? I am seeing more and more that there is somewhat of a complacency in my outlook on life. I don't look forward to things as much as I used to because I am afraid to let my hopes down. I don't think about things too much before they happen and I don't formulate ideas of what they should or shouldn't be. I've realized that building up unrealistic expectations of what you think will happen will only make the reality that eventually sets in, that much harder.

Now, I kind of just keep my eyes closed and let the future roll in at me so I don't know what coming until it hits me. Exciting? Maybe, maybe not, but at least I won't be disappointed when things don't turn out the way I think they should.