Disappointment; a great motivation tool.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about disappointment, and how powerful it can be to the human mind. When someone is disappointed in you, you with yourself, you with others, the outcome of something, anything that has to do with disappointment. Why is this so powerful? Why can something that we didn’t want to happen affect us so much? This is what I have discovered.

Disappointment is a GREAT motivation tool. At least for some people like me it is. Growing up I always felt as though I was disappointing people in some way; my grades weren’t good enough, my batting average was poor, I never paid attention, I was a “bad kid”, all those things you dread that people would “say” about you, I felt as though people were saying them about me, and that bothered me a lot, but for some reason it didn’t bother me enough. But evening over the summer I decided to really examine myself and everything that I had done over the years that I had believed (and am still pretty sure were) people were disappointed in me for, and realized how disappointed in MYSELF I was. I was not living the life that He had wanted for me. I had fallen really far away from him and built this “Great Wall of China” I remember describing it as to my friend Erika, it was a wall that would allow me to disregard any bad feelings about what I had been doing, and trust me, there was a lot. But I felt nothing about it, I felt no remorse, and I had no intentions of going “back” to Him, even though I knew that there were people disappointed in me. And that is a big thing with me, I love when people are proud of me, and I think that is because nobody really ever had a reason to be, so when they actually were, it was the most amazing feeling in the world. But this “Great Wall of China” was built so high and so thick that it even blocked out the feelings of disappointment that people had for me, and they didn’t bother me. Until this night, when I realized how disappointed I was in myself. I had told myself that I would never get to this! And look where I was! I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t sad but I was disappointed, and that gave me reason to change, because I wanted to be proud of myself. And I knew that if I changed, and others were proud of me, it would give me reason to be proud of myself. And let me tell you, things were so much better after that. I was so much happier (and still am, pretty much all the time) after I “cleaned up my act” so to speak. And there was no more disappointment. Sure, there are times when I slip, and say a word that I shouldn’t, or do something that I know I shouldn’t. And I’m not going to lie, I get sometimes really angry, but then that anger turns to disappointment, and that disappointment turns into motivation not to do it again. And it usually works, because who really want to be disappointed with themselves forever? Not me.

Now I feel like I should tie this into Christmas somehow, since it IS in six days. And I know that I was going to anyway because this reflects how I feel about it anyway. I’m so disappointed in this world and how we turned something so BEAUTIFUL into something so, disgraceful. If the one that we are supposed to be celebrating came back this Christmas, I feel as though he would be so hurt. Christmas is not about the best presents, sexy lingerie, the food, the shopping, family, or getting together. But that is what we have made it to be. It is about the fact that the one that died for us was born, and he came into this world just as you and I did, a baby, and a lot more humble one than I am sure you and I were. We were born in hospitals with lots of doctors, and probably to married parents with a mother over the age of 22 most likely. Mary and Joseph were not even married, or had doctors or a place to stay! And think about it, MARY WAS ABOUT 12 YEARS OLD. Imagine that.

Now I’m sad to report that no matter how many people are “disappointed” in this Christmas that we have made, it is not going to change. It is always going to be like this because, unfortunately, this is how it is supposed to be. But let that disappointment be a motivation tool, to remember and actually act upon what Christmas is actually about. Now I’m not saying don’t go out and get a tree and everything that Christmas “is”, but at least acknowledge what it really is, because who wants to be disappointed forever? Not me.