Three Laws of Directional Disappointment :
Our disappointments are some of the most daunting feelings to overcome. Because of this, I’ve attempted to investigate what causes disappointment to move in a downhill direction and tries to force us to respect its law rather than respect ourselves.
Time is an Entropic Experiment:
-The relationship between entropy (randomness) and time is derived from astrophysicist Arthur Eddington. He researched how universal evolution is impacted by the randomness of time and chance. Furthermore, this led him to conceptualize how time is asymmetric. Simply put, when life increases in randomness, things get lopsided quickly. How we perceive this lopsidedness is often driven by two factors: memory and volition. Our memories create an expectation of the situation based on past experiences, and our volition will provide us with the energy to confront it. For this reason, the first law of directional disappointment is understanding that time is an entropic experiment. We can never predict what will happen to us, but we can always control how we respond. The influence of disappointment will attempt to blur this distinction to convince us that we “should’ve known better”. I once read that the common quality in US Presidents was that all of them (except Trump, sorry lol) were intellectually curious. They use their uncapped resources to gain knowledge, and therefore consider their executive actions to be experiments for better understanding. Shall be consider taking this same approach when looking in the direction our expectations are pointing?
Expectations Are Linear Projection:
-Coming back to Arthur Eddington’s research, he conceived that time moves in one direction. The “arrow of time” is a linear projection of what you may already know as “cause and effect”. In the context of this discussion, the second law of directional disappointment is expectations are linear projection. Expectations, at least in my experience, often will lead to disappointment because we mentally create idealistic projections of how our days and life will turn out. By nature we are rigid minded creatures from our conditioning. We are naive to this because our idealism of life is rooted in positive intent. We can plan accordingly, follow the steps to a T, be assertive; and yet still be filled with disappointment as our expectations move rigidly with the plan. Just as linear thinking, linear expectations will only ever result in copies of past product. If our expectations are not flexible and open to being pushed off the line, the pattern of disappointment will continue to repeat itself.
Reversal of Inspirational Flow:
-The concept of the “arrow of time” would become the foundation for the second law of thermodynamics. This physical law considers how heat converts “downhill”, unless a form of energy provides a reversal of flow. Inspiration can work similarly. When we are inspired, it can start off as the fire under our ass to act and produce; but as life’s challenges push us downhill our inspiration will become cold until disappointment freezes our spirit. The third law of directional disappointment is reversing inspiration to find a flow. Inspiration is worthless without not positive, but clear intention. In his book “Essentialism”, author Greg McKeown identifies that a pattern for lacking clarity of purpose stems from people not having essential intent. Intent can be intimidating when our inspiration hedges on the recognition from the world. For me, I’ve found that I’ve been constantly disappointed in life by empty words of from others speaking highly of me, to inevitably switch up their stance. McKeown provides an antidote for this and other types of disappointment saying “with no clear direction, people pursue the things that advance their own short term interests, with little awareness how their actions contribute to the long term mission”.
Whether it’s people, money, love, success, or even God; we must reject all those sources of inspiration UNTIL we can firmly direct our interests with intention for long term results .
This can potentially be done with flow.
Create your rhythm, be consistent, find the patterns in your chaos. So when disappointment inevitably comes back downhill; you will be able to reverse it.
In all, our disappointments can be used to our favor when we understand the laws on which it moves. The next time disappointment attacks your capacity, recount these laws and investigate the cause in which has directed your disappointments. We catastrophically dwell on our minute feelings of disappointments effects, that we often overlook understanding what caused it. When our goals are too reachable, disappoint will always dangle above us like forbidden fruit. When our goals are too wild; the natural causes of insecurity, doubt, and bitterness will allow disappointment the opportunity to push our inspiration to lowly levels. Often laws are expected to be respected, but not in this case. Acknowledgment the laws, but respect yourself.