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Disappointment

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I find it interesting that the single most motivating emotion I have is disappointment. Or rather, my fear of disappointing others.

Mini pointed this out to me recently (two, three months ago), and her words have been echoing in my head ever since. I don't want to disappoint Kris. I don't want to disappoint Mike. I don't want to disappoint this client or that client or the other client. I don't want my teammates to think less of me because I've lost that quick step and no longer can outrun anyone. I don't want to let anyone down.

I want to play to win, and not just not to lose, but I'm thus far unable to do so. And it's strange. Strange that I'll never be a Galt, that the most I can hope for is to be a Willers. That the biggest person I've disappointed is myself, but still worry more that I've disappointed others.

Why is that? Why is it that I can be outwardly confident, and seem to fool everyone around me? I fail to believe that those moments of confidence I feel, the times when the world is right and I can do anything, that those times are the exception and not the rule. I refuse to believe that this is it, and that I'm doomed to a life of mental cowering.

I cannot believe this is my destiny. I refuse it.

But don't know how to escape it.

Comments

You escape it by realizing that you *aren't* a disappointment. That the late night whispers in the ear as you lie awake at night are lies...and that lies have a father. And that father is forever angry and hateful that he believed his own first lie, and seeks to mitigate that error by whispering lies to others as well.

You escape it by realizing that you *do* have a destiny, and you're right to resist the lies that lead you to the edge and point you to the abyss and laugh.

You escape it by accepting that you are loved in ways and means and times beyond anything you will *ever* be capable of giving to another person in this life, or receiving from another person. By accepting that this love has a source and an end beyond anything in this universe.

You escape it be accepting that from conception you've been a plan, not an accident. You've been knit together, fearfully and wonderfully made. You have a purpose, a gift, and a future. And this fact angers the father of lies beyond measure, to a hatred beyond comprehension from a loss beyond understanding.

You escape it by accepting that the lies don't matter. The father of lies is powerless when you ground yourself in the truth. Truth that supercedes you, or your family or your accomplishments. Truth that doesn't change, doesn't compromise, doesn't betray, doesn't abandon. Never.

There is a way out Kitt...and you know it. Without cracking the Bible or listening to a televangelist or a quirky high school ex, you know it. You know the lies for what they are. And you know that truth ultimately has to be a hell of a lot bigger than you are for it to be worth anything.