Tag: resilience

Disappointment

In less than six months the grumbles began about Pastor Frank. In less than a year the church fired him. Frank was devastated. He had sincerely believed God had called him to that church. At the service marking the beginning of his ministry, the whole congregation had stood and declared they also believed his appointment was God’s will. Frank felt affirmed. This was where he was meant to be. Now he was fired, leaving him shocked, distraught, self-esteem damaged, doubting his abilities and doubting his calling.

Of course, the church saw things differently. Their senior officer told me, ‘Frank is a good man, but he’s a terrible preacher. People were leaving. The church might have closed. What else were we to do?’ Had they not heard him preach before he was appointed? ‘He must have given his one good sermon,’ the leader replied.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of that situation, Frank was crushed by the criticism and rejection he experienced. After months of agonising thought, he took another job. It was not as a pastor.

Many experience severe disappointment, and it comes in many guises.

George was madly in love with Wendy. They got engaged, discussed the wedding plans and everything they could think of about their future married life. Then for six months George went to Africa on a humanitarian mission. He and Wendy wrote constantly, but half way through his mission George noticed the warmth had gone from his fiancée’s  letters. When he was home, Wendy met with him only once, handed back the engagement ring, and told him they must go their separate ways. George never saw her again. ‘What did I do? Why did I deserve this?’ he asked. He never got answers. Everything he’d anticipated about his future was gone. All that was left was the deepest of deep disappointments.

Viv was probably the cleverest pupil in my high school class. If there were subjects in which she wasn’t first, she was at least second or third. Everyone knew she’d excel in her final exams, go on to university, then move into a fabulous career. None of that happened. Viv left school as soon as the law allowed, long before those final exams, and got a modest job in an office. Why? Viv left because she was mocked. She was less than five feet (1.5 metres) tall, and teased mercilessly by fellow pupils and even by some teachers. When Viv stood up in class, someone would shout ‘Stand up Viv’. At other times someone would ask ‘Is Viv not here today?’ when it was perfectly obvious she was present. As she left school for the final time, Viv left a message. It read, ‘I couldn’t take it any more…’

Criticism, mocking, rejection, and disappointment may not be the very worst experiences someone can have, but their cruelty eats away at our inner spirit, destroys confidence and injures us for years. Maybe forever.

So, how do we deal with disappointment and similar blows to our inner spirit? It’s easy to give trite answers, but they are always unsatisfactory. If anything I write seems like that, I apologise. I do understand that getting past deep disappointments is no easy matter.

Disappointment is normal

In 1975, the rising star of American golf, Tom Watson, arrived in Carnoustie, Scotland, to play for the first time in the Open Championship (one of the four golf ‘majors’). He was used to the soft, flat fairways of America, but he’d never played on a British links course.[1] Watson began a practice round, and hit a glorious drive straight down the first fairway. He strode after his ball, but couldn’t find it in the centre of the fairway, nor anywhere close by. After ten minutes he finally located it in the edge of the rough. His ball had hit a mound, and ricocheted sideways. Watson was not impressed. Feeling cheated, he said later: ‘I didn’t believe that was the way golf should be played’. But before the main tournament began he accepted that this is how links golf is played, and that bad bounces were normal. Watson not only won that 1975 Open Championship on his debut, but won the tournament again another four times.

The very biggest disappointments in life are not matters we just shrug off. But more moderate disappointments are normal. We fail a driving test, we scrape the car against a wall, we do poorly in an exam, we’re not picked for the football team, a friend breaks her promise, our pay rise never materialises, the special meal we planned becomes a burnt offering, and so the list could go on. Life is not a soft, flat fairway. It’s one with humps and hollows that throw us aside. This is normal. And it’s survivable, as you’ll see by reading on.

Disappointment develops resilience

To be resilient doesn’t mean you don’t get hurt or discouraged when things go wrong. But it does mean you’ve learned how to pick yourself up and move forward beyond those troubles. In fact, it’s the problems and disappointments in life that create and build resilience in our lives.

Here’s a very personal story. My mum died in her mid-50s, and dad remarried several years later. Anne, his second wife, was a lovely, kind lady, and for many years they enjoyed each other’s company, took short vacations, spent time with family, and pondered the mysteries of their newspaper’s daily crossword. Then Anne had a stroke, and was paralysed down one side of her body. Her speech wasn’t bad, but walking unaided was near impossible. Anne became depressed, and gave up on physiotherapy because she didn’t believe she could get better. I visited as often as I could and supported my dad as he cared for Anne. He and I talked about what more could be done for Anne, but it seemed all that could be done was being done. Anything more had to come from inside Anne. But dad told me Anne had never been ill in her whole life, never faced a difficult health issue, never had to fight for healing. Now, devastated by her stroke, it seemed she’d no inner resource of strength to draw on. Anne never recovered.

Years ago I read the story of a man watching a moth freeing itself from its chrysalis, the little cocoon in which it first grew. The man saw the moth push open a small opening in the chrysalis’ wall, then struggle to widen it. But the moth couldn’t seem to open the hole any further. So the man took fine scissors, cut the slit wider, and the moth flopped out. It lay free from its chrysalis and the man waited for it to stretch its wings and fly off. But the moth didn’t. It couldn’t. It just lay there, and, with dread, the man realised that the struggle to free itself was what gave strength to its wings. He’d taken away its struggle, and the result was that moth would never fly.

The struggles of life build our strength. Yes, they’re painful, and yes, we wish they never happened, but they create in us the resilience we need to get through life.[2]

Disappointment can be an opportunity for something new

One of the most common things said by employers to someone being fired is: ‘This might be a really good thing in your life’. Not one person being fired ever agrees. And I could agree only by emphasising that word might – yes, it might be good, but it isn’t automatic.

When might disappointment be good? It depends on things like these:

  • What you’re leaving – such as getting out of a job in which you were not succeeding, or out of a relationship that would never work out well.
  • What new opportunity opens up – some of the best outcomes I’ve known following career disappointment have come when someone retrained for a high demand job.
  • What attitude you take about your future – being numbed by what you’ve lost means missing out on what you could gain.

My pastor friend Murray strove for years to save a dying church. It had been declining for years before Murray became pastor, but he’d believed he could turn things round. He gave his best but the problems were deep-rooted in attitudes and personalities, and numbers kept dwindling. So did Murray’s spirits. I met with him many times, and watched optimism turn to pessimism, and brightness drift into depression. ‘Murray,’ I said, ‘it’s time to move somewhere else’. He wouldn’t listen, saying ‘A captain goes down with his ship’. Yet, strangely but very timely, soon after that another church asked him to consider becoming their pastor, and Murray accepted. He left the failing church with a heavy heart, but poured himself into his new work. And, wonderfully, Murray flourished and so did that church. He’d been desperately disappointed he couldn’t save the first church, but its problems were probably more than any pastor could solve. Freed from those issues, Murray’s gifts were exactly what the new church needed. It grew and Murray’s self-confidence as a minister grew. And he had a great ministry.

There are new opportunities after deep disappointment, providing we’re open to them.

Disappointment with how we’re treated needn’t be passive

I told a little of Viv’s story earlier. To this day it makes me sad that teasing and bullying stopped her completing her school education and pursuing her career dreams. As far as I know she never complained to a teacher or the school’s head teacher. I understand that. A 14 or 15-year-old feels powerless. But I wish she had. I wish she’d got her parents banging on the head teacher’s door, demanding action to stop anyone giving their daughter a hard time. I never teased Viv – honestly I didn’t – but I wish I’d realised how hurt she felt about what others said, and that I’d done something to protect and encourage her. People like Viv need allies. It might have helped.

Unfairness, prejudice, bullying must be called out for the wrong they are. Some things in life that hurt and disappoint us can’t be changed and we must accept them (as I’ll write in a moment). But we can’t and shouldn’t accept everything. There are times when such a wrong is being done we must push back.

Disappointment with ourselves is especially difficult

The Greek word akrasia means ‘weakness of will’, ‘acting against our own considered judgment’. Philosophers debate how we can choose to do what is not in our interests to do.

Whatever conclusions philosophers reach, akrasia is a reality for all of us. We do things we know aren’t right or helpful.

Everyone has their own list of akrasia experiences. For some it’s when they didn’t try their hardest. Or betrayed a confidence. Or failed to keep a promise. Or did something morally or legally dreadful.

What disappoints us about akrasia failures is that we knew we were doing wrong. We could and should have acted differently. That makes it hard to excuse ourselves.

But what we can’t excuse we can forgive. I missed sociology lectures when I was first at university, not because I disliked the subject but because the lectures were too early in the morning so I stayed in my bed. I was disappointed in myself, but instead of holding on to that disappointment, I chose to change. I bought a loud alarm clock, went to bed earlier, and rolled out of bed as soon as the alarm sounded. But none of that would have happened if I hadn’t forgiven myself. Regretting about yesterday stops us rejoicing in what today brings.

Disappointment sometimes has to be met with acceptance

If disappointment is a normal human experience, it can’t always be avoided. We’ll feel it whenever what we hope for doesn’t happen, or what we’ve dreaded does happen. Disappointment is an inevitable emotion, a right emotion. And, in a healthy sense, we should accept it. ‘This is how I should feel given what’s happened.’

We accept it because life is a place of hard knocks. One of the times the Commonwealth Games[3] was staged in Edinburgh, I helped out in the Games’ Village. One evening I noticed a young athlete sitting alone, looking seriously sad. We began to talk, and I learned she was a Welsh sprinter who’d been eliminated in the first heat of the only event in which she was entered. She’d dedicated her life to preparing for these Games, and in seconds her part was all over. She was very disappointed. Of course she was. In that one conversation, there was nothing I could say to ease her pain. But my hope is that before too long she understood that this was one blow in her life, and beyond it lay many good things.

We all have to do that. Every dream can’t be fulfilled. I had a flatmate who wrote letters to at least twenty senior football clubs across Britain asking for a trial. They replied. Not one club offered him a trial. He was disappointed. But clearly not everyone can be a top soccer player, or an operatic star, or a princess, or a fighter pilot, or climb Everest, or break a world record, or become prime minister or president. We have to come to terms with disappointment.

Thankfully there’s more to life than the things which disappoint us. There’s a saying ‘When God closes a door, he opens a window’. A door closing isn’t the end of opportunities. Whether or not we see those opportunities as God’s better plan for our lives, there always exists a new way which is still a good way.

Recognise that disappointments will occur throughout life. Learn from them, and let them make you stronger. Move forward, confident that beyond disappointment lies something good and fulfilling.

[1] In the UK, a links course is one built on the land lying between the sea and agricultural land, hence the name ‘links’. That land would originally have been undulating and likely unsuitable for farming.

[2] For one of the most remarkable stories of perseverance in the face of many disappointments, you should read the account I gave of one man’s life in an earlier blog. See https://occasionallywise.com/2021/05/01/when-your-car-number-plate-really-matters/

[3] The 2022 Commonwealth Games will be held in Birmingham, England, from 28 July to 8 August. Background information about the Commonwealth Games is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Games

Friendships

I took a deep breath, then asked a question no friend expects. Tom’s answer could affect the rest of my life. ‘I’m planning to ask Alison to marry me. You know both of us well. Am I doing the right thing?’

Tom looked startled. He’d never imagined being asked such a question. But he didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course you’re doing the right thing. You should have asked her ages ago.’

I laughed, feeling grateful and relieved in equal measure. I wasn’t inviting Tom to make my marriage decision for me, but as a deep and close friend his support meant a lot. 

Thankfully Alison said ‘yes’ and, as well as being my wife, she’s been the closest friend of my whole life. But Tom probably came next. Sadly, Tom died several years ago but he knew me through and through, and I’d have trusted him with my life. Others have also been important, and some still are. I’ve also had many acquaintances and truly enjoyed their company, but I’ve a feeling there’s room for only a few very special friends.

So, what defines the best of friendships? I’ll share my answers, but others will have their own priorities. They’ll also vary according to who the friendship is with – every friendship is unique.

Here are nine qualities of friendships I think important. They’re not listed in any special order.

Being genuinely interested    I have a secret which is almost a confession. From about the age of 18 I realised that girls are not attracted to boys who talk endlessly about themselves, especially when they brag about their accomplishments. I’d understood that girls were much more drawn to boys who were interested in knowing them. I’d ask simple, non-intrusive questions. Not just learning facts, but discovering what they thought or felt about all sorts of things. It worked.

If that was only a technique to find a girlfriend, it would be manipulative. But if being interested in someone is sincere, it’s appreciated.

That truth isn’t limited to romantic encounters. It’s foundational to all friendships. Every relationship of depth involves really knowing the other person: thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears.

Caring    Knowing someone isn’t enough. Real friendship also involves caring about anything that concerns the other person. It means supporting through tough times, helping with hard decisions, commiserating with disappointments, rejoicing in successes.

Caring marks the difference between deep friendships and more superficial friendships. Lesser friendships aren’t bad. It’s good to have acquaintances with whom you enjoy spending time. But lower-level friendships aren’t about lives intertwined, bearing each other’s burdens, supporting through the worst days and the best days. I shared doubts, fears, ambitions, hopes and dreams with Tom. Why? Because he cared. And I was helped and strengthened by having him to lean on. I believe I was able to do the same for Tom.

Respect    There are long-term relationships that lack respect. They can be bullying or domineering or dependent relationships which go on year after year. But they’re not friendships, and they’re not healthy.

In a real friendship each accepts the other for who they are. No-one’s trying to control. No-one’s taking advantage. Each believes the other person is worth knowing, worth trusting, worth supporting, worth respecting.

At a later point in my life, I built a strong and helpful relationship with Stuart. What began with polite but guarded conversation developed over many years into sharing struggles and disappointments. Stuart was consistently supportive. Eventually I knew I could tell him anything about myself and he’d still respect me. So I talked about areas of life where I was falling short. That wasn’t easy for me to share or him to hear. But he counselled me wisely, and made it clear I was still a person of worth. That really mattered to me.

Despite failings Stuart still respected me. A good friendship has that quality.

Sharing experiences    Tom and I first met on study courses that would give us admission to university where – we discovered – we both hoped to do the same degree before entering Christian ministry. We were from different denominations, but aiming for the same vocation. Our friendship grew, and we found we had similar spiritual questions. Both of us were particularly concerned about living closer to God. We read books, went to meetings, and we talked endlessly. And then we hit on the answer: if we got together and prayed all night, surely we’d be close to God by morning.

So we chose a suitable night, one when we’d have no early classes next morning. We began our praying about 11.00 pm, sitting in chairs with our heads bowed. After an hour we decided it was more spiritual to pray on our knees. After another hour my knees ached unbearably, and I had to sit on the floor. Tom’s knees were in no better shape, so we were both seated on the floor. We got to 2.00 am, but by then our prayers were short and infrequent. Less than half an hour later, I said I’d be more comfortable lying on the floor. I knew nothing more until a short time later Tom shook me by the shoulder and said, ‘I’ve pronounced the benediction. You can go to bed now.’

Next morning we alternated between laughing and pronouncing ourselves spiritual failures. But our ‘failed’ night of prayer wasn’t the end of still seeking ways to be better Christians. Our search went on.

That was part of sharing experiences for me and Tom. Other people will go to football matches, or to music festivals, or be cinema buffs, or read the same books, or climb hills, or work in the same firm, or whatever else they share. My point is only this, that friendships involve journeying together, not merely crossing paths occasionally while going our own ways.

No hidden goals    Relationships are not friendships if either or both have ulterior motives.

I boarded a plane in Kathmandu for my flight home to the UK. Beside me was a young lady, probably aged in her mid-20s. Mo liked to chat, and I thought, ‘This could be an opportunity to share my Christian faith’. Once the plane had taken off and meal served, we had several hours to talk. We got on to the subject of belief remarkably easily. Eventually I realised why. Mo had been in Nepal to study at a Buddhist temple and school. (Buddhism is the second largest religion in Nepal.) She was fired up about her Buddhist beliefs, and as our conversation wore on I realised Mo was trying to evangelise me. So, while I was trying to convert her to Christianity, she was trying to convert me to Buddhism. Both of us had ulterior motives for our conversation. It was a very odd experience.

Friendships can’t have hidden goals. One can’t be trying to ‘sell’ something to the other, whether a religious belief or a political position. And one can’t be trying to ‘get’ something from the other, like the boy who offers a girl friendship (or, what he calls ‘love’) in order to get sex.

Strong friendships don’t come with an agenda. They’re not like business relationships where someone’s trying to make a ‘profit’. Friendships exist because each values the other. No other motive. No other goal.

Openness    Every friendship can’t involve a complete opening of hearts and minds, as if every secret must be told. That would be an impossible burden. But the strongest of friendships work only where there’s a reasonable sharing of thoughts, feelings, experiences, desires, and ambitions. A friendship can’t exist when either is ‘closed’ to the other.

Henry had a hundred friends. He wasn’t difficult to like – gifted, knowledgeable, chatty, generous. With some of the hundred he’d watch football matches, walk in the hills, go to the cinema, accept invitations for meals in their homes. But, just when people felt they were really getting to know Henry, he’d back away. Without explanation he wouldn’t seek their company any more. Why not? No-one knew for sure, other than that Henry had withdrawn as soon as relationships deepened. It seemed he didn’t want his innermost thoughts and feelings known. Which was sad.

Openness is fundamental to any kind of deep friendship. It doesn’t work otherwise.

Honesty    Friends can risk telling truths that would be resisted if spoken by anyone else.

Another way of saying that is this: A superficial friend will tell you what you want to hear. A real friend will tell you what you need to hear.

At times we act foolishly. We might voice prejudice. Or buy a vintage car that’ll cost a fortune to maintain. Or keep bad company. Or run up debt on our credit card buying a new mobile phone every six months. Or skip classes at university. Or constantly turn up late for work. And so on. Someone has to warn us; to tell us we’re being an idiot. We won’t like it. But it needs to be said. Only a friend will take the risk of telling us what we must hear. A strong relationship will stand the strain of that.

Resilience    Children – including young teenagers – fall in and out of friendships. So parents hear words laced with anxiety: ‘She doesn’t like me any more’; ‘He doesn’t want to be my friend now’. Thankfully it’s usually all different just one day later. Back to being the best of buddies.

Real friendships – friendships worth having – are far stronger than one row, one disappointment, one time of letting the other down.

I’d put it this way: deep relationships are not transactional they’re relational. In other words, they’re not like a contract where, if someone breaks the terms of the agreement, the deal is torn up. Strong friendships are like having a brother or sister. We’ll squabble but you’re still my brother or you’re still my sister, so we’ll forgive and move forward. In the same way, commitment to each other is essential to strong friendships.

Perseverance    Six-year-old Hazel comes home after her first day at a new school. Mum asks: ‘Did you make any friends today?’ ‘Yes,’ Hazel says, ‘I sat beside Jackie, and she’s now my best friend.’

Well, I’m glad Hazel found a friend at her new school. But ‘best friends’ after one day? Absolutely possible in a child’s world. But the reality check for those of older years is that the deepest and best of friendships don’t happen in one day. Houses are built brick by brick, and friendships are built day by day, month by month, year by year.

And that takes perseverance. It involves all the attributes listed above put into practice constantly. In the early days there’s no guarantee that a friendship will last. Not all friendships do. But once the days and months turn into years, friends are relaxed with each other, feel secure together, and have confidence in their relationship. Students going off to university for the first time are told: ‘The friends you make in the next year or two may well last for the rest of your life’. That often happens, but it needs commitment and effort from both sides.

Finally,  I know some find it hard to find friends, so I’ll close with one piece of advice.

Be open to friendship, but don’t grasp at it, don’t force, don’t even make friendship your goal. Just be the great person you are, relax, and let friendship happen.

I don’t know you’ll find a great friend. But I also don’t know any reason why you won’t.