Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment

October 06, 2017 2:21 PM

There’s a unfortunate difference between the fantasy of
wanting something and the reality of acquiring it.

Especially if you spent a
significant amount of time poring over this dream that you thought would
magically make you whole.

Ask anyone who leaves the family farm to try and make
it in the big city. There may be nothing prettier than looking back at a town
you left behind, but that doesn’t mean the place you go next won’t be ugly.

And
so, what happens when the dream you’ve had all your life starts unfolding
before your eyes, and you suddenly realize it’s not what you thought it would
be?

When the crushing reality of your situation fully dawns on your naive
consciousness, how do you cope with the accompanying disillusionment?

You view
it as a gift. Something worth giving thanks for, worth finding joy in, and
worth growing from.

To be disillusioned, then is to be stripped of your
expectations and therefore freed from the influence of illusion.

And the
exciting part is, once that balloon of belief finally bursts, we can move
laterally to find better eyes.

Campbell famously said that disillusionment was
a way of evoking a new depth of reality in yourself, and I agree. Because when
I think back to all of the experiences in which I discovered something or someone
wasn’t all they were cracked up to be, there was a process that followed.

First
there was sadness and disappointment. Then there was emptiness and apathy. But
then there was reassessment and refocus. And that created newfound space and
freedom and joy in my upgraded version of life.

Crews wrote a brilliant essay on the joy of disillusionment,
reminding us:

When we replace illusion with reality, we step out of our
cavern of myth and take a deep breath of the air outside, brisk and with a tang
of scents unknown, but it is the real world we are inhaling and it enlivens us
to move forward and to value who and what we truly are.

If it’s true
that a dot of unbelief might save the devotee from drowning in his faith,
perhaps a dab of disillusionment might also save the dreamer from drowning in
his fantasies.

Sure beats floundering
on the stones of harsh pessimism and broken promises.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Which lies are keeping your from living in reality, dull your heart, clogging your ears and blurring your vision?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com