A sigh and a shrug of the shoulders

The art of... being disappointed

LIFE is tough. It’s so tough that if you’ve ever dared to dream then it’s likely you’ll have had to deal with brutal and crushing disappointment. A lot. And it’s not even as if you have to go out of your way.

Little disappointments, like you being the black sheep of the family, come thick and fast and every now and again you’ll face big ones, like when “Coronation Street” is cancelled because of the football. “This is an absolute joke,” my wife has been heard to say in recent weeks, “I am livid.”

It’s true that a sense of disappointment is all in your mind but only in the same way as being happy, being sad or being under the impression that you’re a stallion in the bedroom.

No matter how positive you attempt to stay though, eventually your spirit will be broken and it is OK to admit that you really, really wanted things to turn out differently.
You can say, “ah well, more popcorn for me then,” on the first five occasions you’re stood up at the cinema, but no matter how strong-willed you are, eventually you’ll have to concede that you would have preferred another outcome.

Waiting for life or other people to let you down is all well and good but the best way to guarantee disappointment is by building your hopes up. Be ridiculously optimistic, over-estimate your chances of success and expect what you know deep down is never going to materialise.

A big sigh will show others you have moved into the arena of disappointment. Simultaneously lifting both arms and dropping them as if they’re dead weights will crank it up a notch. But if you don’t feel that’s quite conveying your disappointment to those around you, you can sniff loudly and exclaim, “I honestly expected more out of life than this.”

A double whammy can be achieved if not only are you disappointed with what’s happened but, furthermore, you’re disappointed with yourself for not realising it was all going to end in disappointment anyway.

There’s recently been a great example of a whole nation using this technique. It tends to happen when our team of over-hyped footballers heads off to an international tournament, if they’re lucky, to perform with such an abysmal lack of desire that everyone in the country is left to rue the day they began to believe.

The same rules apply about building your hopes up. Get some flags, arrange a barbecue for all your friends and then just sit back and wait. You know the score. It was 4-1 as I recall.



Next week... The Art of Playing Cricket