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Without going into the details, I have to say, I’m pretty discouraged right now. I know, woe is me…I have been working on something for over a month now, and it was about to bear fruit, and the hard part was over — or so I thought. I gave up a whole week of vacation for it, and have sacrificed many things. It was extremely time consuming and fraught with frustration, but I persisted and was led to believe I had prevailed. and then at the last minute, was told I could not have the thing I was working for. I am battling a light depression over this — nothing severe, but I have no interest in my work today, and feel very angry because the thing I’m being denied is being denied for dishonest/inappropriate reasons. I essentially reached an agreement and proceeded with my commitments under the agreement and had the rug pulled out from under me. When I share what has happened with wife and a couple family members, they are shocked and angry.
And I feel that I have wasted all my time on this only to find the people I’m working with lack integrity.
I feel very deflated about human nature right now, distant from God and just plain sick to my stomache. The key feelings are discouragement and regret over time invested that has not born fruit. I also feel a bit hurt – like I just broke up with a girlfriend that I really liked (although this is not a girlfriend situation or anything like it at all).
Suggestions — what mental attitudes and approaches to life do you take when this happens? When you get knocked down — I know the drill — get up, dust yourself off and keep trying. But that part comes after you make the mental shift to not let it get you down. I’m not there yet….
Suggestions about what you do to get back to being happy and productive again after you’ve taken a huge disappointing hit?
Life sucks, and then you die. Let yourself feel the disappointment. Feel it. Taste it. Swim in it for an hour or so at least. Cry about it. I think blocking it prolongs the problem. Give yourself some time to feel disappointed.
Then you move on and let it go. I think it’s harder to let go in a healthy way if we never let ourselves feel what we need.
Good advice….I already vented to my wife who was indifferent but it helped. I’m also considering an alternate way of achieving my broad objective through an entirely different paradigm. Let my creativity nullify the disappointment. But I’m still disappointed. Life sucks, then you get over it, be happy, and then you die….?
This is what I would do. A number of the steps probably don’t have application in your life. It is difficult to give specific advice when you don’t know the details. Here goes…
1. Don’t drink (alcohol) over this problem & go to an AA meeting.
2. Go to a good friend & discuss the problem face to face.
3. Vent. Do it within a limited time period. (A good friend can take this for a limited time. Then I become boring.)
4. Gather your family around you & do something fun.
5. Get some physical exercise. Sweat can be a great healer.
6. Do something spiritual. For me it can be a trip to the dog park with my dog.
7. At times like this, I read D&C121 alot.
I wish you the best.
Mike from Milton.
I’ve been suffering from occasional mild depression for a number of years now. I finally admitted it to myself and got into free counseling through the VA. Talking has helped a lot. Exercise helps. For me spending time outdoors helps, it’s my happy place. LIght, lots of sunlight. Don’t take ownership of things others have done. Realize that you are a good person and are doing the best the can. Like Shakespeare said, “This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
What I have to say is similar to what Brian said but maybe said different enough to be helpful. When I was in the MTC I asked a visiting GA a question along the lines of: “The experience here has lots of ups and downs. I feel super spiritual sometimes and not other. I feel really great and then it is difficult. How do I stop it from being such a roller coaster ride?”
His answer was “That’s called life Elder.”
So a lot of the answer I think is just accepting that sometimes we will be discouraged. Sometimes bad things happen in life that are discouraging and difficult.
It’s OK to have the downs. It’s part of life. It’s OK to feel discouraged when something is discouraging. Trying to not be discouraged just makes it worse – allow yourself to be human and to experience life.
My personality type is idealist – so I tend to think life overall is good and will be good. So to me it’s not a matter of life sucks then you die, but more life’s good but it has really sucky parts and that’s OK.
It’s OK to be discouraged and mildly depressed and angry when the situation calls for it. Just don’t wallow in it forever. Process it and move on.
Thanks everyone — I appreciate your answers. Just the fact that I could share what I was feeling and have a few people respond with caring and perspective helps. Now, for the interesting turn of events…I felt the people who triggered the disappointment were being unreasonable and renigged on an agreement, so I stood my ground with them and told them they needed to stick with what we agreed to show integrity in their process. They were so unreasonable up to that point I figured nothing would come of my “demand”. So, I did what Brian said — felt the pain for a day or so and then decided to take a break from chasing the dream until I could regroup refreshed.
And guess what, after I had moved beyond the initial bite of the disappointment, they later decided to give me what I wanted after all rather unexpectedly….and it appears it’s going to happen.
I like what my Dad once said — if you chase after a butterfly it will often evade you, but if you just sit down and enjoy life, then sometimes, the butterfly will land on you. Or the other phrase — a dog once said that success is like his tail. If he chased it, he never gets it, but if he just goes about his business as best he can, it follows him.
Thanks for all your comments though. I really appreciate them…and I’m experienced enough to know the disappointment in this situation could occur again. As they say “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings”. I don’t have what I want yet, but it looks like it’s going to happen after a few things come together now that I have a deal.
Thanks again everybody.
SilentDawning wrote:….
Suggestions — what mental attitudes and approaches to life do you take when this happens? When you get knocked down. ..
Suggestions about what you do to get back to being happy and productive again after you’ve taken a huge disappointing hit?
I know I am late to this party SD, and this might not be the popular response, but I go out and sit by the burn barrel, watch the stars, drink some beer, and just appreciate what do have.
Good luck friend.
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In fact. That is what I am doing right now. Wow. Listen to those coyotes.
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Since we all go through disappointment from time to time, advice on this topic is good. For me, it’s good to imagine the worst case scenario and then focus on the present. As in your case, often the worst case thing doesn’t actually happen. When other people let me down, I also think through the situation from their perspective. Since people always feel justified in their actions, I imagine why they feel justified in what they are doing, and what I could have done differently. I often conclude that while I made mistakes along the way (was too trusting, didn’t communicate well enough, waited too long to speak up) that given what I knew at the time, I did the best I knew how even though I’m wiser for the experience. And guess what – things don’t always go our way! That’s life, as someone said. I like Hawkgrrl’s comments. During the custom Sunday School Lesson I have with my daughter (due to bullying in the classroom), I used my experience to talk about decision-making and disappointment.
I made the point that often we have disappointment — and often start questioning the effort we put into the effort we tried to achieve…. To overcome that disappointment:
1) Focus on what you learned from the experience (as Hawkgrrl said)
2) Remember the reasons you went into the effort in the first place. Those reasons were likely very convincing given the information you had at the time. The only reason you’re regretting the decision is because you now have more correct information about what was going to happen!
3) Look at your motives for what you did. What were you trying to accomplish? Where they good motives? If so, love yourself for those pure motives.
There was a student of mine who I think has the right attitude. He bought a tax deed for $12000 on a 1500 square foot home with a double car garage in a decent neighourhood. It had a hole in the roof and the entire interior had to be gutted, mold removed, and everything redone. No one wanted the house at the auction even at that price.
After he bought it, he found it had a second mortgage on it. He immediately pleaded with the county person doing the auction and explained it was his first time doing this. He told me he was lucky — the county representative took off the second mortgage to get the property off the books.
After he started renovating the property, he found he had underestimated the cost of the repairs, and will likely not even get market value for the home. No one will lend him money on the property now, and he is paying high interest rates on his hard money loan.
What I admire about this student of mine is the honestly and humility with which he explained all this to me. And when I commented…”you must be kind of regretting you bought the place”. He replied “financially, yes, but I learned a lot. I need to get out of this one and start over again with everything I learned”.
What a great story – and a great attitude. Some of the best lessons of my life have been learned as a direct result of some of the biggest disappointments of my life. Again, I believe passionately in the concept of the absolute need for opposition in all things.
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