Contemplating disappointment

It’s not often I let disappointment get to me. Its dampening of my will really does not mix well with my more positive outlook on life. But sometimes, just sometimes, disappointment squeezes through the cracks and I contemplate it for a while.

Like now. I am contemplating the validity of things and the inadequacy of human nature. How have we survived so long as a species with so little thought for anyone else but ourselves and our money.

I’m in the process of studying an online social psychology course with Coursera. One of the assignments within the course is a ‘Day of Compassion’ in which one has to go 24 hours showing compassion in their surroundings – whatever that might be.

I partook in the challenge, eager to make a positive difference within my reach. I volunteered to help raise funds for a burnt down school, I was more compassionate with the people around me, and I was happy with that. However, two of the bigger tasks I attempted ended in disappointment.

One was rebuffed due to corporate logistics, and the other was a person unable to take a phonecall from someone on the otherside of the world. Failure due to money and too much focus on the self. These two failings are pitfalls in our lives. There is way too much focus in our society around money, materialism, and self-preservation.

I am just as guilty of these weaknesses as the next person. It’s quite something when you discover the true emptiness of our surroundings for yourself, rather than reading about it in a book somewhere. It hits home a lot harder when you see it and live through it each day.

The more I think about these two major failings in our society, the more disappointed I get. The more disappointed I get, the more I want to change it. This is a major challenge, but one that you and I can rise up and defeat.

This was one of the main reasons I started this blog. So that I could document this journey of discovery. To inform myself, and you, about how we can find true meaning in the world around us. To find a way we can make effective change in our lives. It’s funny, how with me never having been much of a spiritual person, I am now saying that we have to change.

Thank you for reading my contemplation of disappointment. As I’ve typed this, disappointment has turned into resolve. It’s now time to change this world. Time to help each other grow out of mediocrity, discover ourselves, and be awesome.

Will you join me?

[Featured image: Aleksi Tappura]