Change of Plans

Have you ever been disappointed? If you’ve ever dealt with people in your life, chances are that you have. Let’s run through a hypothetical: you make plans with your buddy, having something to look forward to is quite powerful so you start feeling excited from the anticipation, you get to spend time with one of your homies, and then the day of, you get a text, “sorry man, something came up, can’t make it.” This is something I’ve gone through hundreds of times just this year. Something the people I know have gone through just as many if not more times this year as well. It sucks and can be quite painful as well.

There are many ways to respond to this when it happens. You can be sad, angry, very likely disappointed, a combination, you can feel a lot of things, and none of them will ever really be a positive feeling.

I can’t really explain how I do it in a way that people can copy per se, but I will say when these things happen for me I don’t feel bad. The first thing is understanding that things do come up, and that’s cool, but the real way to defend against a painfully unpleasant feeling of disappointment—you probably won’t rid the feeling completely but you can minimize it—starts when the plan is made.

You should always trust people and you should take people for their word when they make promises or commitments, and you should always try your best to hold up your part of the commitment, however, when someone makes a plan, don’t expect anything to happen. You do what you need to do for your part, you can feel that excitement, but if things fall through, you make sure you have something else you can do, and if there was never an expectation, the disappointment will be less. If you were excited there will still be some disappointment for not getting the dopamine shots you would have, that’s just how the brain works, but you shouldn’t be devastated or anything.

That’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed it, and hope you aren’t let down too often in your life, but watch those expectations and if you are, then you’ll be fine.