I have noticed that I am adjusting to living with elements of disappointment in my life, and that this acceptance of living with disappointment, is a vast improvement on living each day with a sense of having been a failure.

I have lived a substantial part of my adult life, and adolescent life before it, feeling that I had failed.

I have come to recognise through the my development with a coach, that a continued sense of failure is a judgement on self which is harsh, unfair, unbalanced, and in my case a potential threat to my stability within my family and community.

I can recognise the times in my life when I have experienced failure in its proper context, perhaps a job interview or an exam, but these are better classified as a stepping stone to future success next time round, or success in an alternative at a later time – failure and success are true indicators of living in a life of light and shade, in the present.

The sense of disappointment is, for me, a very important sign of my shift from darkness to light. This sense of disappointment is a transient feeling in my life, but I am not defined by it.

I sense that my recent journey to reject failure and embrace disappointment is the important work of accepting self, and because my disappointment is not all encompassing, and is only applied to matters which I now recognise as being in matters outside my control, I am free to live in the present, without the harsh judge telling me that I have failed.

So, I am disappointed with how some things have turned out, well at least I tried – where is the failure in that?

My next blog will be: Past your Bedtime

William Defoe

Picture Credit: Ws Worried Young Man By The River Stock Footage Video | Getty Images 

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