Healthy advice for coping with disappointment

It starts early. Somehow things don't turn out the way we wanted, planned, hoped, worked for, or counted on.

We are hungry, but our cries do not elicit food. We toddle to the door to greet Mom's return home with a smile but are not rewarded with the immediate attention we sought. There are no ponies at our birthday party.

It doesn't end there. We are denied the promotion we worked so hard for. The marriage we thought would meet all our emotional needs for all our life somehow seems less than fulfilling. We look in the mirror and realize that for all our efforts, we no longer have the face or figure of 10 years ago. The son we dreamed was destined to be a physician, the daughter gifted with perfect pitch, see neither doctor nor diva in their futures.

Disappointment is a part of life - all our lives. The most powerful, the wealthiest, the most successful, the smartest, the most talented people in the world are still just as susceptible to feeling disappointed as any of the rest of us. No matter what resources or strengths we bring to our endeavors, something will always go a bit askew.

Sooner or later all of us have to learn some way of dealing with such disappointment. In fact, I suspect that finding a healthy, life affirming, self-affirming way to respond to disappointment may be one of the most important discoveries we can make.

Certainly one way of dealing with disappointment is simply to limit our possible encounters with it. The less we want, plan and hope, the less we set goals that stretch our capacities, the less we count on others, the less we will feel disappointed. I guess if we never expected anything of ourselves, of others, of life, we'd probably not feel disappointed at all.

Perversely, another way of dealing with disappointment is to seek it out. We can intentionally set our expectations - of ourselves, of others, of life - so high that we will always be disappointed. And we can even take an unhealthy satisfaction in always being confirmed in our belief that we will continually be let down.

A third more promising alternative does exist.

We first have to accept that we live in both the present and the future (we live in the past, too, but that's another column). If we are going to live our life to the fullest, we are going to want, plan on, hope for and work for a future that includes those events, accomplishments, relationships, possessions, etc., that we find compelling.

Second, we also have to learn to set expectations that allow for both success and failure in creating such a future. We have to have a broad enough list of wants, plans and so on that we can always look to some area of our life and find satisfaction or success.

We have to set our goals high enough to stretch our capabilities, but low enough that we can realistically accomplish most of them. And we have to accept (and even appreciate) that things will seldom, if ever, turn out exactly the way we intended.

For example, though disappointed that we seem stuck in a dead-end job, we might find satisfaction in our role as a parent. And we might make specific, concrete plans to improve our job skills so as to qualify for a better position.

Or rather than lamenting how our marriage does not meet up to the perhaps unrealistic expectations we set as a young adult, we might focus on its strengths and work with our spouse on ways to bring out more of its unique potential.

And we could seek out friends and family to meet some relational needs that might not be fully met in our marriage.

Dealing with disappointment, then, involves both accepting the inevitability of our desire to create the future of our dreams and tempering that desire with an acceptance of and appreciation for the realities with which we live.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."