Expectation and Disappointment

It hurts when you got disappointed. Especially when you're expecting it to someone you care about. They say, expectations hurt. That may be true. But I think, it's the other way around. Expectations don't hurt. It's the disappointment that does. Expectations turned into disappointments are what's painful.

It's really not just the deed itself but also the people you were expecting it from. Sometimes, if only not for the person you had the expectation with, it wouldn't hurt as much. It would be sad but it won't be as disappointing as it would feel if not for the person. It wouldn't be as painful as it would be if we didn't expect it with someone we care about. Then we start to feel as if we've been cheated on. That's when the pain of disappointment arise. It also hurts as much when you get disappointed with yourself. Self-pity starts to crawl in our thoughts. Guilt and shame plays in our minds. I think this is one of the hardest to get over.

Often times (or maybe a lot of times), we get over disappointment by blaming others. This is the first thing we do. 'Why did he/she do that?, Why didn't they do this?, Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?' These are our first defense. Then sometimes we blame ourselves. 'Why did I let it happen?' Then we think of things that we should've, could've and would've done. We end up with regrets and hate and doubts.

If it hurts to get disappointed, then why are we still expecting? Why do we continue to expect and take the risk? This one's obvious. Because we believed. Because we had faith. Because somewhat we felt like we wouldn't be disappointed and we like the feeling of victory.

The act of expectation is inevitable. It's natural for people to expect. It's not something we choose not to do. Deep inside of our thoughts, we are expecting something... no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that we are not expecting anything in return. We expect because we believed we deserve it. I think you can agree on me with this.

There are disappointments that are hard to get over. There are those we can take lightly. It depends on how much the expectation is and with whom we expected it from. It depends how deep we believed. Disappointment, as well as satisfaction, is what makes the expectation real. It's true that not all expectations lead to disappointment. Satisfaction, however, is a different story. (But I won't go over satisfaction in this article. )

How can we prevent disappointments? We can't. It's in the risks of expectations. We will never know. If we know we'd be disappointed, then why would we expect in the first place? What we can do is just be ready or at least try to be ready for any outcome. And when we're caught off guard, the only thing we can do is start the process of healing. It may not be easy but we owe it to ourselves.