Part 2: Readers' Response to Essay: "Coping with Disappointments: Is Taking Them for Granted a Healthy Response?"

Part 2: Readers' Responses to Essay: "Coping with Disappointments: Is Taking them for Granted a Healthy Response?" Inbox Mark Riedy Thu, Jan 13, 7:07 AM (1 day ago) Responses to the essay on handling disappointments were plentiful and insightful, as illustrated in Part 1 of this two-part series. In this essay I will provide the full responses of four individuals, ending on an upbeat note. With thanks again to those of you sharing your thoughts with me, it's my pleasure in turn to convey the insights and experiences of four friends. 1. This friend responds faithfully to almost every essay I write, and articulates an unabashedly liberal/progressive point of view on a wide variety of topics--consistently well-reasoned and presented-- typically from a socio-economic-ethical perspective rather than a political one. What follows includes material from two of her responses. "What strikes me most in what you wrote is what is considered “regular” life in this day and age, and what was considered “regular” life when I was a kid. My parents were middle class, my father a very hard-working large animal veterinarian and my mother a homemaker. In Burbank — a blue-collar working-class town — we were considered well off. Well off meant that once a year my father drove us to Lake Arrowhead or Santa Barbara for a two-week vacation. I was 26 before I ever left the state and had only been on a plane once before that to go back and forth to Cal. In many ways, I was poised to think of trips, travels and flying vs. driving as incredibly special and unexpected occasions vs. something about which to become disappointed. I am also reminded that cruise ships used to be large boats that got people from one port to another vs. all-encompassing floating cities that can never have enough amenities and food. So, I am back to my thoughts about consumption and enough is never enough. It all begs the question as to when the world becomes a disappointment — to those starving right now in Afghanistan whose history is so war torn one that one marvels at the resilience of people to persevere or to those in America where even a pandemic replete with vaccines brings no cohesion as to how to deal with the well-being of the whole. My own disappointment is about humanity and how much we’ve come to expect as normal, including war, climate change, and individual rights to do whatever one pleases regardless of the well-being of the whole. Sobering thoughts for sure," In her second response, she added..."I like what you are doing very much, Mark, particularly because our politics differ and the way you present enables exchange among differences, so needed and so lacking in today's world." 2. My essay on responding to disappointments struck a personal chord with this friend. Loved this essay, Mark! You expressed feelings I know I am experiencing (as well as my loved ones) but had not tried to verbalize or analyze. Now that you have enabled me to genuinely see the impact of Covid disappointments and losses, I hope to face this new frame of mind with more clarity. One of my concerns is how guarded my heart has become toward new things.........plans, hopes, ideas, dreams, visions. I do not want to lose the joy of looking forward to meaningful and exciting things but in order to suppress disappointment, I am doing exactly that! Happy New Year and hugs to you and your wife. Thank you for challenging us! 3. This friend's essay was powerful, and painful. “Thanks for this Mark. I have a definite personal response because disappointment and learning how to cope with it (or better I say avoid it) has been a core lesson for me learned long ago and in a hard way. My story is attached.” Mark- I appreciated your perceptive reflection on what could have been passed off as a casual remark by a disappointed grandson. And I can relate it to a life lesson of my own that became one of the core foundations of coping with and enjoying the twists and turns of life. As a young man I experienced few disappointments and in fact had “willed” my way into getting pretty much everything I had ever wanted. If I wanted it, I worked hard to get it or in some cases I admit I manipulated events to turn out the way I wanted. I always felt powerful. I married young, had two children, built a successful career and company, and enjoyed my beautiful young wife. After ten years she announced that she was leaving, I could keep the kids. No amount of counseling could change her mind. I couldn’t control the outcome and I was devastated. This was the 70’s an era which featured free sex, marijuana, hippies and new age philosophies. I read Carlos Castaneda and discovered Lawrence Ferlinghetti. My reading strayed from the WSJ to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. For the first time I began to see that disappointment could occur and that one had to learn to live with that. Along the way I discovered a contemporary philosopher whose name I have long forgotten who offered a simple but absolutely true maxim: “Everything that disappoints us can be traced to an expectation that did not come into being.” Don’t expect anything and you will never be disappointed or dissatisfied. I expected my wife to be with me forever. I expected to raise our kids together. I expected to attend my daughter’s wedding as a successful and admired couple. I expected to attend parties and business events with my trophy wife at my side. It never, ever crossed my mind that I would be a single parent. This single lesson from the now unknown philosopher allowed me to heal. It allowed me to lead a more comfortable life less driven to achieving whatever it was that I expected. I still strived but I learned to never expect the outcome. Lots of benefits resulted. I could be more flexible in dealing with results. I put less burden on my children regarding their achievements. I could adjust strategies after envisioning an outcome different than that which I originally envisioned or expected. This principal guides me to this day. Thanks for triggering this response from me as it has been a long time since I’ve shared this wisdom as I used to do when I mentored more. If you share this with your readers, please do so anonymously. 4. A long-time friend shared this quotation from L.R. Knost. I found it both upbeat and inspirational, and thought it to be a good way to end this essay on an inspirational note. With sincere thanks to everyone who responds to my essays, please enjoy the Knost quotation. "Life is amazing. And then it's awful. and then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living, heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful." Mark J. Riedy, PhD January 13, 2022