Whenever we feel disappointed – by a certain result, by our behavior or that of another person… – it is because we had previously created certain expectations that were far from reality. Let me give you an example with my own story.

When I turned five or six, my father gave me a book. It was my first book, a real book, full of text. It was not a comic or an illustrated album. I had just learned to read and I remember perfectly what my reaction was: enormous disappointment! Why a book? As if I were an adult… I didn’t want a book! I wanted a toy!

I didn’t dare say anything to him so as not to hurt his feelings, but I guess the disappointment could be seen on my face.. I still remember the title of the book: Oui-Oui and the yellow carby Bibliothèque Rose (Oui-Oui is a character created by children’s literature writer Enid Blyton).

I read it with disgust. But oh miracle! I liked it a lot and since then I haven’t stopped reading. Reading has become one of the activities to which I dedicate the most time and that brings me the most pleasure. And writing books is today my second profession, along with being a doctor.

Why are we disappointed?

My disappointment, although real, was deceptive; Painful at first, it gave way to a passion that still lasts me today, many years later.

Disappointment is that movement of surprise and sadness that hits us when we do not obtain what we expected and trusted would happen.

Some situations can disappoint us: a less happy party than expected, the defeat of our soccer team, rainy weather, the result of the elections…

Someone can also disappoint us: a friend who betrays our trust, a child who does not perform in school, a spouse who is not receptive during an intimate evening because he is too worried about work…

Disappointment only comes whenPreviously, we have waited or loved, when we have gone through a positive wait. It is like a fall, a painful return to a reality very far from our expectations.

What we don’t want or don’t care about, doesn’t disappoint us. So our enemies never disappoint us, because we do not expect anything from them.

Thus, to avoid disappointment, we can try not to expect anything. But that supreme detachment does not seem very joyful or attractive to us.

We prefer to live with hopes that are sometimes followed by disappointments, instead of neutralizing all our illusions in order not to experience any type of disappointment. And we are right, well There is another way to live with it.

How to live with disappointment

Many of the patients who come to my office suffer disappointment. But is your problem disappointment? Or rather an inappropriate way of living it?

There really are sick disappointments: they are those that we continually ruminate on, that push us to withdraw from the world and distance ourselves, that follow this reasoning: «I have been disappointed too many times; every time I have given my trust, in friendship, in love, every time I have hoped… So I have decided not to commit myself anymore and not expect anything.”

As a therapist, I believe that this attitude breeds the most miserable people in the world. We cannot live without expectations or hopesand this is because these make us as happy as achieving our goals and, sometimes, even more.

I remember a well-known phrase that says: “The best moment in love is when we climb the stairs.” And this is so because half of our happiness is waiting and the other half is in the present moment. So that, Instead of shying away from the feeling of disappointment, let’s make better use of it.

The path of acceptance

Disappointment is a double penalty: We are disappointed by the situation – a rain that does not stop and irritates us – and also by our attitude – growling against the rain is useless, but we still growl.

However, it is well known that you have to accept life as it is. He said Marcus Aureliusthe philosopher emperor: «Is that cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there brambles in the way? Avoid them. That’s enough. Don’t add: ‘Why does this exist in the world?’»

And as another philosopher reminds us, André Comte-Sponville:

«Disappointment is part of our humanity. So we must accept it too and stop hoping that we will never feel disappointed again.»

So, disappointment leads us to reflect on acceptancethat elixir to live in reality and not in a succession of illusions and disappointments. Accepting is not resigning or submitting, it is not giving up waiting or acting.

Accepting is taking note of what is already there: welcoming the world as it is, rather than exhorting it to be as it should be. It is also accepting disappointment, calmly recognizing that we expected something different.

Simply tell ourselves: “Well, things are like this,” and stop complaining to then turn to reality and see what we can do: disappointment thus leads, smoothly and progressively, to action.

We can feel disappointment in ourselves: all the times when we have not lived up to what we expected, that we have not obtained the results we expected.

Once again, the solution is not found in resignation (“I will never try anything again”) nor in self-devaluation (“I am useless”), but in acceptance: as long as I am alive, I will intend to live. In everything I set my mind to, sometimes I will succeed and other times I will fail. My life will be a succession of joys and disappointments. And it is good that it is this way.

Life is made like this: disappointment has its place. was the writer Paul Valery who noted in his Mauvaises thoughts et autres (1942): “I am disappointing: a nice motto from someone… perhaps from some god?”

Are the world and its inhabitants sometimes disappointing? Maybe they are to help us better appreciate everything that is not.