yesterday, my wife and i embarked on an outing that we had been looking forward to all week. as we left, i was excited about the prospect of a day out with my wife. as we drove toward our destination, i began to feel depressed and lethargic. this feeling persisted all day long, and i couldn't account for it. my wife, who was driving, decided along the way to forego our first stop because of the timing. that was the stop i had been looking forward to most. at first i was angry and started to tell her how disappointed i was but decided to keep my feelings to myself.
as the day went on, we were both somewhat let down by our trip. items we had planned to purchase weren't available. our lunch took an interminable time to arrive. the day was exhausting, and as we drove home we both expressed our sense of frustration that the trip had not been all we had hoped it would be. the days leading up to the trip were busy, and perhaps we were just exhausted from all that had gone before. perhaps we had such high expectations for our outing that we were saddened by the day's inability to live up to them.
this is a pattern that happens with some frequency in each of our lives. we build up expectations and are saddened when reality is something different. when this happens, we shouldn't feel guilty about our disappointment, but instead recognize that this is part of being human. everything can't always go as we would wish. there's nothing wrong with feeling angry or sad when things go awry. what we have to do is accept our humanity and learn from these misadventures, turning disappointment into gratitude.
may we accept our humanness. may we be grateful when things don't go as we would wish. may we recognize and embrace our emotions, even those that are negative. may each experience be an opportunity to grow and learn. shalom.
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