When people disappoint us.

“He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

Whether they’re politicians or salesmen there’s not a lot left unsaid about how their proffered expectations rarely survive the next dawn. Yet they charm us time and time again and we let the lessons of the past go to embrace that fuzzy, warm glow of hope springing anew. Quite a few of us enjoy that moment of wistful indulgence. Enough of us enjoy it that the same show has been playing for decades, if not centuries. If they’re charming enough, we will return and repeat the entire scenario just to be charmed again.Because they made us feel good, even if we knew it was all a sham. We accept disappointment after disappointment and then one day we get angry at the one who we believe disappointed us. They haven’t changed, we must have.

We were charmed because we needed to be. In a world where hope, trust, and faith are the characteristics of the suckers, our hearts look for proof that those naysayers are wrong. It’s the last finger gripping the ledge that hangs on the tightest.

We ask, how can anyone be so stupid to believe that guy? Because they needed to cling to whatever he offered them. They did not trust in their own ability to stand.

If we’re in water where we can’t see the bottom and we’re warned by someone on the shore that it’s deep, we usually won’t try to touch bottom by putting our feet down. The person on the shore could tell us that a shallow spot was to our right and most of us would try going to the right before attempting to touch the bottom. It’s what humans do when they’re afraid and don’t believe in their own agency. We will only get disappointed in the expert on the shore if we realize that we didn’t need to touch the bottom in order to swim back to shore.

How could they not see what was right in front of them? Because if they looked closely, they would have to relinquish their belief.

We don’t see what we’re not looking for, or what we’re not expecting. JC Penney had a failed retail experiment not that long ago. The company decided that instead of having constant markdowns and sales events, that they would lower the prices on all their stock to the lowest price that they could sell them for. They believed that this was the most fair and reasonable way to do business and that their customers would appreciate the lower prices. They hoped that it would increase their sales and bring in more traffic. It flopped. Shoppers had been so well conditioned to shop at sales events that when the stores no longer had advertised sales events, foot traffic actually decreased. They found that customers expected prices to be inflated and that they had no idea of the actual cost of them items that they bought. Customers truly believed they were getting a good deal if an item was marked down. The realistic price didn’t matter nearly as much as the percentage off price. The customers were disappointed with the lower pricing in place of perceived bargains. JC Penney returned to their old sales model and floor traffic returned.

When we get disappointed in someone else’s choices or behavior, that’s not about them. It’s about us. Until we got to the bottom of that cup of life, we were pretty happy with it. The dead beetle was always there, we just weren’t aware of it. It’s the same with all disappointments. Sometimes we can go for years before we get disappointed and other times it takes just a few minutes.

A politician who changed their story. They took the expedient route rather than the prescribed method. Or they said one thing and did another. They called for all of us to buckle down and endure the hard times because they were necessary. We said okay, we will do that for the common good. When did we get disappointed? When we realized that what they were asking us to do wasn’t what they were doing. We had assumed that they would economize too. That was on us. There’s an old phrase that says something about assuming and asses. But we only see what we expect. We trust the observer on the shore. We don’t trust ourselves enough in the room of loud voices proclaiming that we should trust them instead.

The salesman who hints at all the wonderful possibilities that might happen. With a new mattress, the really fancy one because it’s the one that can change your life, we can sleep better and if we can sleep better we can: be happier, love our family more, have a better marriage, be more patient, touch the stars, perform better at work, have less pain, be more focused, and change our entire lives for the better. Yes, those are all possibilities but none of them are guarantees. These are things that we want to believe.

The best salesman is charming. They can read us like a book. They find our soft spots and flatter them, cajole them and make us smile. We know they are giving us empty promises but we walk away form their presence somehow feeling like someone turned off a light. When do we get disappointed by them? It’s not when they can’t deliver on their promises, and it’s not when they treat our boundaries like a pair of curtains to be opened. No, we get disappointed when they cease to be charming. When their humor, or their personality quirks, become dull and no longer entertaining, that when we can no longer abide their games at our expense. When did we notice that it was always at our expense? It was almost always the moment they threatened us on some level by attempting to use their soft power in a concrete way.

“A desperate salesman is a dead salesman.” Arthur Miller – Death of a Salesman

When we become disappointed with others, it’s a sign that we have grown. We may have gotten more confidence in ourselves and would be less afraid of testing the depths. Or we may have increased our knowledge so that we know the value of an item and not base our preferences on what someone else says it’s worth. We might look at that politician and wonder what on God’s green Earth do they think and don’t they see we can see their choice. Then we understand that they really don’t comprehend how nothing goes away on the internet. Our anger can turn to acceptance as we recognize we all have limitations. We can eventually grow so far past our own assumptions that we can hardly believe what we used to think ourselves. Disappointment is temporary. We learn. We grow. We don’t buy that 2000$ mattress. Charming doesn’t pay our bills, just the salesman’s.