Disappointment, Isolation, Temporary, Keep Believing In Santa Claus

August 10, 2021,

Idealistic and most likely young, you feel that you possess very important principles that others should adhere to as well.

You’re confident that when challenged, your principles will hold up.

You are so sure that you are right.

Then you are tested.

Fiercely so. And guess what?

To your disappointment and dismay, those principles don’t remotely hold up.

Yes, you’ve always felt that poor people should have food. As long as it does not put your food at risk.

Yes, you feel that everyone should have a nice paying job with benefits. As long as it doesn’t place you in the unemployment line.

Yes, you feel that every husband should live the life that he wants, as long as he provides you with the one that you want (large home, children shopping sprees, wine and cheese parties etc.) first.

Reality eventually sets in.

Then you become disillusioned. In yourself.

It is one thing to be disillusioned with others who did not adhere to their company mission statement, political platform or marriage promise.

That is them and they are not you.

It is when you are tested and fail that the sense of disillusionment becomes personal.

Where do you go from there?

Primarily, isolation.

Physically.

Most important, emotionally.

They are many interstate signs that you can follow into oblivion. Hey, at least you get to see the mountains and the lake along the way. From a distance.

Hollywood movies are filled with stories like the above. Some of them actually well done.

Can we make a suggestion, since we’ve been there?

Wherever you end up?

Don’t stay there permanently. Keep it temporary.

But you know what?

For a while you actually do need to be there.

We’re going to say that again.

Yes, for some time, you need to be there. Alone in your apartment, home or the mountains.

Recovering.

Stay there. For now. Don’t rush it. Eventually though, you need to claw your way back to engagement minus the extreme naivety that most likely was instilled into by your well-meaning parents. Parents who most likely disappointed you as well.

Don’t blame them.

They have to initially lay a foundation for you that life is going to be a wonderful and almost perfect experience, where like a trip to Disneyland, all of your dreams can come true.

Just like those nights before Christmas back in the 1950’s and 60’s where you actually believed there was a Santa Claus.

We did. It was so magical. So much fun. So much to look forward to on Christmas Eve.

Then someone spoils it.

Usually it is some A-hole classmate, already disillusioned, who waits up late into the night to see the retailer’s truck drive by and drop off the big gift.

Now this person has ruined it for you. For us. Christmas was never the same after he opened his big mouth. Couldn’t he have just kept that to himself?

Disappointment aside, you still have to become engaged. In Christmas. Even though you know Santa is not real but the love for your family members is very real. So you pretend to believe because it makes some of them so happy. Because years later after some of them have gotten lost in the world or passed away, those large family gatherings where you gave one another gifts of love, will never occur again.

Ever.

Take your time to recover from disillusionment but at some point you need to engage with life again.

Otherwise you could end up like these two.

Leaving Las Vegas is a 1995 American drama film written and directed by Mike Figgis, and based on the semi-autobiographical 1990 novel of the same name by John O'Brien.

Nicolas Cage stars as a suicidal alcoholic in Los Angeles who, having lost his family and been recently fired, has decided to move to Las Vegas and drink himself to death. He loads a supply of liquor and beer into his BMW and gets drunk as he drives from Los Angeles to Nevada.

Once there, he develops a romantic relationship with a pretty, but hardened prostitute (Elisabeth Shue).

Unfortunately, in real life, Mr. O'Brien died from suicide after signing away the film rights to the novel.

Inside and out, this appears to be a very powerful story about loss, disillusionment and not forcing yourself to re-engage.

Yes, force is the operative word because it won’t be easy.

The master reviewers at rogerebert.com enlighten, “The movie works as a love story, but really romance is not the point here, any more than sex is. The story is about two wounded, desperate, marginal people, and how they create for each other a measure of grace. One can see how this material could have been softened and compromised, and that would have been wrong.”

True indeed. There were no compromises. That is why the film is so painful and believable.

And enlightening.

For some, after suffering significantly, they take an approach that if they just stay out of life’s way and medicate themselves by making money, traveling, staying at beautiful resort hotels and being really nice that they will be able to avoid future pain.

Our experience is that Life is a very tough task master and will not allow that to happen.

What is the benefit of re-engaging after devastation, after isolation, after privately licking your wounds?

You will emerge as a much more powerful person than before.

It will take time, but once you rededicate yourself to a new positive cause, especially one that positively affects, helps and most important, engages others, it will feel like a rebirth of a person who took a punch or two, and still got back up.

You are not as naïve as before and you don’t see the world through rose colored glasses but you do seem to see the world for closer to what it is, warts and all, and you are still determined to make it a much better place than before you arrived.

You have no time for bitterness. That is for those who have permanently accepted failure and want to blame others, creating a permanent downward spiral.

Now older, but still idealistic, based upon your improved skillsets, your newer and stronger principles, forged and tested by fire, having re-emerged, placing you in a position to have an enhancing effect on others, especially the young and their wonderful naïve principles, should keep you motivated.

Your re-engagement truly can forever alter the lives of those you love and possibly the world.

Why?

Because for some of them, Santa Claus is still real.  

~ ~ ~

OPENING PHOTO fciwomenswrestling.com femcompetitor.com, fcielitecompetitor.com fciwomenswrestling2.com Anna-Shvets-pexels.com-photo-credit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaving_Las_Vegas

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/leaving-las-vegas-1995

https://femcompetitor.com/

https://grapplingstars.com/

https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/

https://fciwomenswrestling.com/