Do you ever feel like you should be much further along in your life? Professionally. Financially. In your relationships.
I do. And I tend to look at other achievers in my age group and wonder why I haven’t shared the same level of ‘success’ as they have. (This only makes me feel worse!)
For me, disappointment is the emotion that results from unmet expectations.
Here’s what I’ve learned…the feeling of disappointment is not the problem. The problem is when we allow the feeling to keep us from moving forward. Just because I’m disappointed about losing the first game, I can’t quit. I can’t let my disappointment keep me from trying my best to win the next 10!
I’ve also learned that I don’t always set fair or realistic expectations—especially when they are my expectations for other people. Setting lofty goals for another human being is really a good way of setting myself up for a letdown. Truth be told…I can’t always count on myself! I even set unfair expectations for God—creating my own ideas and timeframes for when God is going to intervene in my life.
We simply cannot control what others do…especially not God.
But here are two things we CAN control: where we set our expectations, and how we handle the disappointment when it does occur.
Don’t let disappointment stop you. Keep moving forward. There’s a whole lot more life for you to live.
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2 comments:
Very timely message. It blessed me.
Interesting thought. It's only natural to compare yourself to peers in an attempt to guage where you feel you stand. I wonder if we set everyone up for failure in this way...from the time young kids are taught "you're all special, in your own way", that may be where it begins. In some ways, that sets the expectation that everyone is indeed special and that that "specialty" will be valued in our society. However, isn't that a false reality. In the real world, only certain "special" features result in what most accept as "progress". So, how do we approach this?
When I was 15, every possibility seemed plausible...hey, I could even become president! Now, 20 years later, many of those possibilities have gone by the wayside. Yeah...I can see how that leads to disappointment!
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