Life, love, work, and play. These all eventually disappoint. Sometimes a lot!
We all know what disappointment is, unpleasant.
It goes like this:
Optimistic Mary applies for a new job. Shortly after submitting her application, Mary is contacted by a hiring company. She answers a few questions, feels good about her answers. Her hopes rise. A few days later, she’s contacted by a hiring manager via telephone. He asks Mary about herself, engages in a friendly conversation. He thanks Mary for her time, says someone will call her shortly. Mary is now enthusiastic about the job prospect. It’s one week later that she receives a formalized email that states she is a “stellar” candidate for the position, but, unfortunately, there are other stellar candidates and the company hired someone else.
How does Mary feel?
“Disappointed.”
Teaching a class, I asked people to stand-up if they have felt disappointed. Every person stands, some are crying as they do.
What is disappointment?
Defined (Cambridge Dictionary - [brackets mine]): …the unhappiness or discouragement [negative emotion] that results when your hopes or expectations have not been satisfied [met], or someone or something that is not as good as you had hoped or expected.
This definition, twice, mentions the word “expectation”.
What is expectation?
The American Psychological Association Dictionary defines “expectation” as:
The strong belief that something will happen or be the case. More than anything else, our expectations determine our reality. And our expectations also impact those around us. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, people [we] may rise or fall depending on our [own] expectations and beliefs.
Mary got “her hopes up,” her expectations increased as she anticipated getting the job. She likely fantasized what it might be like to already have the job, the new people she would meet, new challenges, higher pay, benefits and so on.
Was this a mistake?
Should we, instead, set our expectations low and keep them there to prevent (or avoid) disappointment?
The figure above depicts the emotional consequences of setting low versus high expectations. Setting “low” expectations is referred to as the, “conservative approach” designed to minimize disappointment by keeping expectations low (all the time) just in case real consequences fall in the negative. If this happens, then you’ve already aligned your low expectations with a disappointing reality. As a consequence, you are NOT disappointed.
Is this a good idea?
What are the consequences of always setting low expectations for yourself. Always anticipating that you: won’t get the job, won’t get invited back, won’t pass a test, won’t finish a race in first place, won’t find a life-long partner.
Clear costs exist in the “conservative approach.”
Is there a better way?
Everyone would like to predict the future. Whole industries exist to fulfill this wish. Psychics, palmists, soothsayers, clairvoyants, futurists of all types.
What would life be like if we could reliably predict the future? If Mary could predict before the hiring process was over whether she would get the job or not.
In a way, the “conservative approach” does this by focusing on anticipating the worst because, in concept, the worst outcome is most likely to happen. This isn’t a perfect predictor of the future, but if you set yourself up to fail, then failing is what you will most likely do. This is the basis of the “conservative approach.” It works most of the time.
Of course, “the conservative approach” is not (and has never been) the pathway to fulfillment, especially if you expect (or predict) that your life will not be fulfilled and you do this to assure yourself that you will never need to feel disappointed.
This is like concluding that your future will be an unfulfilled life, and when it happens, then you are OK, actually, you are satisfied because you accurately predicted your own future.
The reasoning above is what I call a “tautology”
Tautology defined: a phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words… I expect to live an unfulfilled life so now that I’ve lived some life my conclusion is it is unfulfilled. That’s what I expected, and I’m OK with it, I’m NOT disappointed.
There must be a better way?
If you pay money. say, and see this psychic. If the psychic only tells you bad things in your future: What is your view of the psychic or the future?
A psychic who wants to stay in business “knows” it is NOT profitable to tell everyone their future will disappoint. Psychics who do this won’t (and don’t) last. Why? Because the “conservative approach” is NOT a good idea for someone who wants to predict the future or at least thinks they can predict it. Even if its true, you certainly don’t want to keep telling all your clients that the future for them is uniformly bleak.
The fact is success and failure, in our world, for most people, is a 50% experience, so the psychic would be wrong to predict failure/bad future events all the time.
What is a better way?
The better way is to “embrace” RISK.
What is RISK?
Risk defined: (transitive verb): to expose to a possible negative event; hazard or danger.
The American Psychological Association Dictionary defines the term “risk” in more detail: 1. the probability or likelihood that a negative event will occur, such as the risk that a disease or disorder will develop. 2. the probability of experiencing loss or harm that is associated with an action or behavior.
Although most people don’t need to know how risk is defined, I find it amusing that all of the formal definitions of risk focus on “bad” or “negative” outcomes. The reason for this is because our Western Society has labeled (or defined) risk, implicitly, as “bad” or “dangerous” when in fact, just like everything in life there is a positive and negative “polarity” in risk.
It would be just as easy to define risk in this way:
Risk re-defined [my definition]: (transitive verb): [to expose to a possible positive event; advantage or win.]
Consider a coin: Let’s say you flip it. There are two sides, Heads or Tails. One always comes up. Heads you WIN, Tails you LOSE. When our Western Society labels something as “risky” the focus is on the LOSS side of the coin and its implications even though win versus loss occurs here 50% of the time (Heads or Tails). You think: The risk associated with this event is that you will “LOSE”. But, there is also risk (or chance) at 50% that you will WIN (Heads you Win, Tails you Lose).
Why does Western Society do this?
Because Western Society is “RISK AVERSE”. By this I mean that we are “Afraid, Scared, Terrified, Horrified, Petrified…” of LOSS.
When we are born we learn, from the beginning that:
TO LOSE IS BAD TO WIN IS GOOD
We learn this from our parents, teachers, friends, religion, politics, and just about every group or everyone we encounter (Avoid the BAD at all costs). We are, by and large, a RISK AVERSE SOCIETY. That’s one reason why most people walk around every day afraid of LOSS. We buy insurance just in case of a loss, Why? Because we don’t think we could ever recover from a LOSS without a lot of help or, as is the focus of this entry, the NEGATIVE POWER OF DISAPPOINTMENT IS ENORMOUS.
This is unfortunate.
Why?
Above is an illusion:
THINK: The young woman is WIN, the old man is LOSS. Winning versus Losing is coming from the same drawing (THE SAME LINES THAT CREATE WIN ARE THE SAME LINES THAT CREATE LOSS). It’s the same thing! That’s why when you win, you might feel equivocal. Great, now what? Or if you lose you might think catastrophically. My God! I lost, how can that be possible, Now my life is in ruins! What do I do now? “You” make the lines different, the lines themselves are the same.
Example: In both cases you are still left with a question:
What to do with the implication of the win?
What to do with the implications of the loss?
Because for most people and in most situations, winning and losing is relative. Yes, relative, NOT ABSOLUTE. It ENTIRELY depends on how you think about it. In the paragraph above: WIN = UNCERTAINTY; LOSS = CATASTROPHY. These terms (equivocal versus catastrophic) are merely STATES OF MIND. Nothing more.
Sometimes it might be good to lose!
This may seem like a radical idea. Let me explain further.
Mary applies for a job, she gets the job, but the job is not a good fit. Mary works at the misfit job for 3 years, is miserable the whole time. Finally, she decides to quit. Mary feels relief that she quit this job.
Mary was, at first, a “Winner” in that she got the job. We all celebrate Mary’s win. The bad news is the job wasn’t a good fit, so her WIN is now a LOSS compounded by 3 years. At the time she took the job she didn’t know this fact.
I could describe many, many scenarios like this. “LOSING” or not getting something that you thought you wanted was actually better than “WINNING”. Sure, Mary could say that this poor-fit job was really a “WIN” because she learned a lot as she suffered day after day working at this job. But, my point here is that “WINNING” or “LOSING” is relative; mental states determined entirely by the person experiencing the phenomenon.
How do I mentally frame “RISK”?
The answer to this question is easier to describe than to do.
We might generate a wholly different lexicon to frame the phenomenon of risk.
For example, labeling risk-taking as an: Opportunity, Chance, Break, Luck….and so forth.
This approach to framing risk emphasizes the positive aspects of the act of engaging in a “chance” phenomenon when the person is not entirely in control of the outcome of an event, circumstance, or an act. Not being in control of everything is a fact of life, one that everyone eventually needs to come to grips with and embrace as an ultimate truth. In fact, it is a “good truth”: Who in this world would really want to be in control of everything and everyone including themselves? GOD? Not God, see below.
“I put my future in God’s Hands.”
A nice saying, but it seems unrealistic because it underscores giving up all control entirely to something or someone else. Do people really do this?
The answer is NO. Not even the TRUE BELIEVERS think this, although they might profess it. Because no matter who (or what) a person does to avoid personal control, it always comes back to the person with some caveats. Example: You can’t put everything in God’s hands because “God only helps people who help themselves.” This phrase seems ironic at first glance. It sounds like, sure, God could take over, but God choses not to and is handing control back to the person who wants God to take over. So, why try to give everything up to God? If God will simply turn it around and give back to you (Help Yourself!). Think about it!
My View: Saying these things (in God’s Hands) is simply a strategy to escape/avoid/not embrace/not deal with the ultimate truth that all of life is a risk/chance which is, actually, where the fun of living is. This is where opportunity reside. It’s as simple as that. EMBRACE RISK AND RIDE WITH THE UPS AND DOWNS.
We were taught that when we encounter a “chance” phenomenon many variables come into play as the phenomenon unfolds. Some variables we can control, some are beyond our personal control. Therefore, the outcome is ALWAYS uncertain.
“BUT, IN OUR WESTERN SOCIETY WE WANT TOTAL INDIVIDUAL CONTROL OF EVERYTHING. WE WANT GUARANTEES, NOT CHANCE!” If we don’t have guarantees, then we open ourselves up to the power of chance and the potential outcome of (DISAPPPOINTMENT). The prospect of taking a risk/chance, as noted above, throws up tons of cautionary flags because encountering something where individual control is not guaranteed is NOT, at least in our world, a pleasant or desirable or easy thing to contemplate.
No wonder people feel terrible when the outcome is judged as LOSS or FAILURE.
Because, if you happen to perceive yourself as losing or failing, somewhere in the back of your mind there is the quiet, persistent, critical, malicious, insidious, knowing voice that says:
“I told you so.”
We are back to the “conservative approach” based on the premise that to fail or fall short is to produce, as a consequence, “I told you so”.
Is there a Better Way?
My answer is an unequivocal
YES. THERE IS A MUCH BETTER WAY!
My space in this entry has been exceeded. Once I get 100 views of this entry I will write Part II.
How to Deal and Benefit from the psychological consequences of Disappointment?