How’s your disappointment?  Would you call it successful?  Or perhaps struggling or would you say its maybe even on fleek?  Puzzled?  OK, well if you’re puzzled about what “on fleek” means, that’s a different conversation and you very well may not be able to be helped, but if you’re puzzled about successful disappointment – you’re in the right place to clear some things up.  Read on my friend, read on.

Disappointment – the inner childish response to not getting what you were due or what you deserved.  Yes.  I said it.  Childish.  And trust me – growing up 100% spoiled for the first 10 years and having spent the last 30 trying to regain said 100% spoiled status – I am an EXPERT in disappointment.  I mean I, Jared Dean have my “10,000 hours” spent becoming an expert on this subject.  I’ve enjoyed it, used it, manipulated with it, grieved through it, vainly celebrated overcoming it, and most importantly – growing more SUCCESSFUL and HAPPY because of it.

No greater time will be spent bettering yourself as a person and the life you lead,
than the time you spend sojourning through the winding roads of disappointment realizing that those weren’t useless cuts and scrapes after all, but valuable prods of direction leading you to the life you were most meant to live.

In the deepest moments of disappointment, we become convinced that we are the only ones there.  It consumes our thoughts, monopolizes our conversations, and devours our momentum.  We grip firmly to what seems like the bottom of our life’s rope, dangling over some precipice of our own unknown, determined that finding or taking strength will allow us to slowly inch up that rope, which sadly is all we expect at that point of despair.  But by simply putting away our childish things, letting our eyes adjust to the darkness, and looking around – we’ll see each other, there, dangling from our own ropes.  Then when our grip loosens and we let go to help them not fall from their’s, we’ll realize we were merely inches from the ground the whole time.  The trick, all along, was the art of seeing others and letting go of ourselves.

Disappointments merely a road sign and you can’t see roadsigns in the dark.  Give yourself a break, cut yourself some slack, let your eyes adjust until you can read the signs.  Maybe they say STOP, or maybe they say SPEED UP and lean HARD LEFT!  Maybe they say GO FOR BROKE, or maybe a still, small, quiet, “hey, this just wasn’t for you…”

stop
wait
let your eyes adjust
listen
look

whoever you are – however you’re disappointed – stop, clear your schedule and think about it, but think about it as a tool, a map – overcome the fear and get excited about what could be on the other side. don’t just stay “at the end of your rope”…..