Disappointments and expectations
(The Philippine Star) | Updated January 11, 2014
I posted a question on my Facebook page: are all disappointments
bad? Among the many who commented, one said he hated being disappointed
because he would lose confidence, get confused, and wouldn’t know what
to do after. Another said that disappointments make him stronger in his
resolve to do better.
I remember learning from disappointment when, many years ago, my
daughter Hannah came home from school and showed the Ilocana and me a
red mark on her report card. We were disappointed. It was easy for us
to blame Hannah for spending too much time on the phone with friends,
not taking her schooling seriously and watching too much MTV (Yes, this
was that long ago).
Failing a subject was a calamity for our daughter, for she had never
had a red mark on her report card. That meant that she would have to
take up summer classes and miss our family vacation. And so we went
without Hannah; I felt that my other kids did not deserve to miss out on
the vacation because of their sister’s failure.
Meanwhile, Hannah dutifully went to summer class. She hated it. And she missed us, her family.
Was Hannah disappointed? Big time! Were we as parents disappointed?
Of course. Was the experience damaging to her ego and her confidence?
This was what happened. I gently told Hannah that we all have the
freedom to make choices in life, and nobody has the power to stop us.
But we also have to face the reality that we cannot escape the
consequences of the choices we make, and nobody has the power to prevent
them from happening.
Hannah was disappointed, but her disappointment only strengthened her
resolve. Much as she loathed the experience, she promised herself that
she would never fail in school again. And she made good on her
promise.
As parents, the Ilocana and I learned a valuable lesson. Just as we
cannot exempt our children from other people’s expectations, we also
cannot shield them from disappointments. From time to time, they will
fail to meet expectations, and our job is to equip them so that when
that time comes, they will have the resolve to make themselves better.
Make things easy for them today, and we make life difficult for them
in the future. Disappointments are not necessarily bad when they become
the spark for one to resolve to be better.
Every disappointment I experience when I would deliver a speech or
give training moves me to improve and correct my mistakes. Cruising on
my competence and being overconfident is a recipe for career disaster. I
need to set my own expectations, raise the bar constantly and persevere
through disappointments.
Do not prevent your children from being disappointed. Encourage them to learn from disappointments and become better.
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