Disappointment

“Get used to disappointment.”

The Man in Black

THE DISAPPOINTING GAME

I absolutely love soccer. I love the games, the team dynamics, the fan base, all of it. And I have my favorite teams: The Chicago Red Stars, Arsenal, and whoever is playing the North Carolina Courage. I recently started cohosting a podcast about soccer. I follow players, teams, and analysts on social media. I own jerseys and t-shirts. I schedule my life around big games and am incredibly excited to watch soccer in the Olympics. 

I don’t consider myself obsessed – there are many other things I also enjoy – but I am definitely invested – emotionally, financially, and mentally. 

On Wednesday evening, I was flying home from visiting my editor, and my flight took off at the exact time that a Red Stars match began. I missed the last game because of my travels (again, not completely obsessed) so I decided to treat myself and spend $8 on internet access so I could watch the game during the flight. It was a home game for the Red Stars, so I was hopeful they’d do well and excited to watch a good game. 

Well, 30 minutes into the game, the Red Stars went down 0-2. Not an insurmountable scoreline by any means – one of the things I love about soccer is that it only takes a few seconds to score, so the game really isn’t over until the last whistle. However, the Red Stars seemed to have no momentum. With an hour left to play, I didn’t feel like they had a chance at winning this game. 

In response, my emotions immediately shut down. I didn’t feel disappointed; I felt apathetic. I was suddenly empty inside.

“Whatever,” I thought to myself. “I’ll just read my book instead. I don’t really care about this game anyway.” 

I pulled my backpack out from under the seat in front of me and started scrounging for my Kindle.

THE VOICE IN THE BACK

And then, because I’ve been working for over a decade on recognizing my emotions, some tiny little part of my brain way in the back raised a hand. 

“Umm, hello? What do you want?” I asked it. 

It cleared its throat and stood up, barely noticeable among my other thoughts. 

“Yes, hi,” it squeaked. “Umm, yes, sorry to bother you. I was just wondering, umm, did you notice that you just shut down a negative feeling instead of experiencing it? Again, so sorry to bring it up and make things awkward. Feel free to ignore me, I’m very used to being ignored. It’s actually how I prefer to function. But, umm, you paid $8 to watch this game and now you seem to be pretending not to care about it. Which doesn’t seem great.” 

“Well, shit,” I thought. “You’re absolutely right.” 

I decided to investigate a little while the game kept rolling. 

Rather than accept the disappointment of the game, I chose to close off my feelings and not care instead. I would literally rather pretend that I don’t care about one of my favorite things than live through some disappointment over one game. And what does that get me? Nothing worth having.

As far as I can tell, painting over my negative feelings with apathy actually paints over some of my positive feelings as well. I’m less likely to get excited about a game if I know I might decide I don’t care halfway through. And if I don’t experience disappointment, how will I experience joy if they do turn the game around? Cutting off one extreme cuts off the other. 

And I don’t want to cut joy and excitement out of my favorite hobby. 

THE SOLUTION

So I’ve decided that I need to get used to disappointment. I need to make it my friend. It happens a lot, and it won’t kill me. I don’t need to avoid it; I can feel it in my bones and let it pass. And doing so will actually make me a better version of myself. I’ll be more empathetic, more emotionally engaged in the world around me, and better able to experience positive emotions when they come along. 

By the way, the Red Stars lost 4-1 and it was an incredibly disappointing game all around. But I watched the whole thing, held onto hope until the last moment, and didn’t give up. I’m going to get used to disappointment, even if it takes a while. 

What do you think? How do you cope with disappointment?