Disappointment and failure are part of being a human
It is the true colour of human beings. Motivational to some, also a setback to others. The great teacher that gives experience to some and a prosecutor that sentences some to their early grave.
Have you ever been disappointed? Or you think life will continue to be smooth? Do you think you can’t be disappointed or you just move on anytime you fall victim?
What have you prepared for disappointment or you are of the school of thought that you have a shock-absorber?
Disappointment is not an ill-luck nor condemnation but a blessing in disguise. A lot of people get disappointed simply because God wants them to appreciate the forthcoming blessings.
Disappointment doesn’t just come but to prepare us for greater heights. Disappointment and failure are similar, like cholera and bird flu, like Ebola and Covid-19. These two unwanted visitors are caused as a result of two factors: one is natural-cause while the other is self-cause.
Imagine one organizes a conference on “Failure and Disappointment,” do you think anyone would come? If one writes a book on that subject, do you think anyone would buy it? Disappointment and failure are not popular topics like death but they are inevitable; they don’t sell tickets or books.
They don’t generate clicks as internet marketers tell us. We don’t want to think about our own failures and disappointments, talk less of hearing about others. We live in a “success culture” that always gives us success story in full.
Nowadays, we no longer hear about people that were disappointed and failed in the scriptures to change our attitude, but all that we hear are “brethren, you must succeed, you need to prosper”.
Reading through the Bible and the Holy Qur’an, we’re given a deep dose of reality. Disappointment and failure are complementary to each other, whether we like it or not. That’s much truer to life than the success narratives that we hear every Sunday and Friday respectively.
For us to know that God has already planned disappointment and failure to guide us, here are some Bible verses in reference to that: Adam and Eve (Gen. 3), Cain and Abel (Gen. 4), Noah and his sons (Gen. 9), Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 16), Lot and his daughters (Gen. 19), Jacob and Esau (Gen. 27), and so on.
Our society has made us derail from the reality of disappointment, deluding us to think that we can’t have good stories to tell once we are victims of circumstances.
As a result of failure and how the society stigmatizes it, some students have committed suicide. Some courting couples, entrepreneurs and businessmen have sent themselves to road-of-no-return because of disappointment.
Failing in relationship or having matrimonial issues shouldn’t warrant your decision to quit but to fight back in full capacity.
Do you know that disappointment and failure can show up repeated times if not well managed at the first instance?
Also, failure and disappointment can follow great success depending on how one manages one’s activities after being successful. Take for instance, there’s a record in the UEFA Champions League that all defending champions perform woefully the following season. That is simply a direct result of how badly they managed their success to have not been able to repeat it or even get closer to repeating it.
In the light of this, it is imperative you learn from failure and you prepare for disappointment. Listen to others’ stories and learn from them.
Failure is not the end and suicide is not the cure for disappointment as he who lives still has hope.
Razaq Fatoki is an ND1 student of the department of Mass Communication
