Disappointment. It rings like a smallish word; easily dismissed. We don't appreciate its inconvenience. We move on. We tell others to do the same.
Truth is, I was pretty disappointed this last Saturday when Michigan lost their football game to Michigan State on the last play. But, I wouldn't acknowledge it that way initially. I fumbled around for at least two other options; one, was to look for a silver-lining. The second was to over-state something, to choose victimization (by the refs earlier in the game), to be angry. Lot's of things other than just simple disappointment.
I don't like disappointment. It's irritating. I don't like to disappoint others. It risks something in me.
It took a good run yesterday to sort out the things above and to realize I was just disappointed. I had wanted something to happen. I looked it was going to happen. But, it didn't. I was disappointed, but my habitual response wanted to make it something else.
...and, of course, the deeper reality is that we live with disappointment about things that are much more significant than the outcomes of football games.
Being disappointed, in simple ways though, allows something else to occur. Something good, in fact. Disappointment is like space. I need to be in a space...unfilled, uncluttered by a bunch of other stuff to see other things that are true. To see that there is more going than just what I want to happen. More going on, that is more important. More about myself that I need to see. More in someone else that I need to embrace.
Disappointment gives us this opportunity -- where would we be without it? Where are we without it? ...too quickly somewhere else, too numb a place, or worse, too often in too violent a place. There is more and disappointment can give it to us, can bring us to space in our life that allows us that more. Disappointment is not small after-all; it shouldn't be dismissed...it is, in fact, a healthy more.
I am disappointed. There, I said it. And, thank God for the gift it is.
