Disappointment - The End of Illusion

 Every time we have an expectation of an outcome or have placed our faith in any person, we risk being disappointed. It lurks at the back of the mind, hidden beneath suspicion and covered with a thin layer of trust. We weigh the possible outcomes of situations and make a decision to trust... and the potential for disappointment has arrived at our door.

Some disappointments cut deep into the heart, as in the mother who looked in horror at an act her son had committed and barely managed to whisper, "My son has betrayed me." Why was it a betrayal? Because her level of faith was so high in her son; she could not fathom that he would make such a choice. She felt betrayed on learning that he had.

When you hear the words, "I am deeply disappointed" at the beginning of any story, you are about to hear a sad story about disillusion and betrayal. It is going to happen sometime in our lives, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. It is quite simply, life.

How do we become disappointed? The seed was sewn when we placed our faith in any person or the outcome of a situation. To find out how it really began, we have to delve a little deeper. Back to the reason we were willing to place our faith there. As we look back to examine the process used to make the determination, we find ourselves carefully examining the facts, the undisputable ones. And then we find the gaps that we felt compelled to fill in. These are the places where facts were absent, and so we made assumptions.

There are many clichés about assumptions. In reality, they are illusions that we project into a situation to fill in the blanks when facts are absent. It is human nature to require a complete story about the things we are placing our faith in. We need 'to know the facts.' If they are absent, we create them to complete the story.

The absence of facts in anything we believe in is the opening to peer into what we believe in. How we fill in the blanks is determined by what we believe about the people or the situation we are examining. And it is that door that opens the opportunity for illusion to enter the scene.

Illusion is based on our perception of people or things that have crossed our path in life. We project the feelings and judgments that seem appropriate to us. Illusion is actually delusion, a false perception. We choose our reality and believe in it when we don't have cold hard facts to examine.

Many times, when things become too set in stone for us, life has a habit of breaking in like an intruder to free us from the chains we have freely worn under the seductive addiction of believing in someone who is not worthy of the level of faith we have placed in them, or misconceptions about a situation.

Disappointment is difficult to deal with; it can manifest as depression or extend all the way to a crushing blow to our faith. When we experience this in our lives it is the best opportunity we may have to carefully examine how our perception of the facts grew to become illusions.

If we are able to honestly examine and correct that part of ourselves, disappointment will become a rarity in our lives. Believe in the truth, without filling in the blanks.