Isn’t life a series of disappointments? I’m sure there’s some text somewhere that cleverly describes it as such, most probably starting with some hogwash about how the first disappointment is being torn out of the loving warm womb and cast into the harsh light of the world beyond (Ah, but consider the claustrophobe, if you will. Doesn’t this mean such a person should become backwardly emotional? Since the first major emotion, disappointment, is to her a joy, won’t she become twisted in a way that all emotions become to her the opposites of what they are to the rest of us? Of course, I don’t think claustrophobes are born that way, so that’s ‘moo’ now, ain’t it?). But seriously life is, though, and I can think of a couple of major disappointments that we all experience at some point or another:

• The disappointment of learning your limitations. Physical limitations usually are discovered earlier in life, but intellectual ones hurt the most when encountered. The shock of not being able to manipulate circumstances to your favor, of discovering that your understanding of a certain situation has always been flawed or lacking, and the sharp pain the first time you don’t understand a concept from its first explanation.
• The disappointment of watching idols as they fall down into the ground of imperfection. This usually happen when you discover your parents limitations, when you first identify the ‘right’ before they do (if they ever), when you see their flaws. It can also happen when you first find out that your parents can protect you from everything, that they can’t kick everyone’s ass. It can also happen when you see any person you look up to as they really are… an imperfect human being, just like the rest of us. This usually is something experienced in early adulthood, and in some cases, much earlier than that.

There are probably a few other general ones, and many variations on the above two (discovering a loved one isn’t who you thought she is, and that you can’t make her be that person, is a combination of both; discovering that the world is a harsh, harsh place, and that people are bloody nasty, is actually discovering that your understanding of the world has been flawed, and that your parents have been less than forthcoming in prepping you for the Real World, again, a combination of both).

It is in how a person deals with the disappointments of life that a person’s life is shaped. Each disappointment, big or small, causes you to reevaluate your life; as its implications usually are far reaching. Betrayal by a friend, for example, leaves us bitter, vengeful, and shocked. What it implies though, is that a pedestal has been stepped off from; and that a limitation in the person’s own perception has been, for want of a better term, “brushed against”. Is it a one-time thing, this lapse in judgment, or is it a character flaw on my part, one wonders. Is awareness of this flaw in my character enough to nullify it, or should I retrain myself to interact socially with a more limited set of skills? For identification of one’s limitations, even if they are severe, makes one a much better person that a constantly failing buffoon, never recognizing his or hers shortcomings.

Sometimes though, a disappointment is not simply a lesson learned, or an obstacle to circumvent… it’s a color-drainage event. You know the feeling, when she tells you she didn’t/doesn’t really love you, when he tells you he’s actually married and has two children, when your business fails, when someone you love dies suddenly, when they tell you got AIDS… when things like that happen, color drains away from everything you see. You feel like you’ve been punched in the stomach, and are falling; knees buckle, faces white-out, and ears burn.

Your world stops.

How do you recover from such a thing? Do you just learn your lesson, adjust the variables, reset and move on; or do you refuse to accept what happened, and become stuck in time, in that moment, replaying it over and over again, until it becomes a melody that plays in the background of your every day? Why is it always the second choice is deemed the wrong one? I wonder. Do you always have to live on, to carry on, and to fight? Isn’t living with ‘what might have been’, sometimes the nobler choice? Doesn’t it show more respect to what you once felt?

Does the better person always have to be the mentally and emotionally healthy one? Why?