Every year, I like to do a post for my birthday answering the question: "You're one year older, one year wiser. What is one thing that you learned this year?" Of course, being the verbose person that I am, I always end up with more than one thing. This year, I'm going to post in multiple installments, each with one lesson from my 35th year (in no particular order). Here's the second one.
TLDR; Allow hope but embrace disappointment. Because you can't control the future and you can't control other people.
I saw a shirt once that read: "Hope is my superpower."
"Wow!" I thought. "That's SO profound. I love that. YES! For without hope, what actually IS the point?" And I resolved right then and there to always hope for a better future and allow that to inspire me in all my endeavors!
If there is not hope for the future--whether that be hope for a quiet and comfortable retirement someday, hope for the Earth to reverse climate change, hope for world peace--then why live?
If there is no hope for change, why put in the work?
Isn't hope and change what Obama won on? If we have no hope, no dreams for the future, nothing to look forward to, then why live at all?
I mean, if you're not striving for anything, why endure the suffering that defines the human condition?
And yet. The pain of disappointment makes me question whether the hope is even worth it in the first place. Is it worth the eventual letdown to try, to dream, to hope?
The Buddha might say to that: "Hope but with no attachment to the outcome."
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This past year, there were three specific events that I was super excited about, looking forward to, and invested in. All three of them got cancelled or did not come to fruition the way I had hoped. The reasons ranged from financial to logistical. It was a roller coaster for me. The excitement and the hope, the anticipation and the longing, the planning and the energy spent, to the realization it was not possible and the reckoning with the reality of limitations on time, energy, and money.
I was super disappointed. I vowed, "Never again!" I was resentful. I was frustrated. I had taken the initiative and it was wasted.
The Buddha might say: "It's about the journey, not the destination! It's about the process, not the outcome!" It's so true. And I learned a lot about the process of hope and disappointment, as well as control and flexibility, letting go and attachment.
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Young people are known for their idealism. Their energy. Their hope. They have a talent for innovation and growth. Adults are more known for cynicism and nostalgia.
Is disappointment and facing reality an inherent part of becoming an adult? Or is that just societal programming speaking?
My dad especially has always been very pessimistic. Maybe he was just protecting me from the disappointment of life that he knew would come?
Once I claimed agency for myself and my life in adolescence, I really took off. I did a lot of things people told me were going to be very difficult if not impossible--learning Chinese and Uyghur, playing rugby, training jiujitsu, transitioning my gender, changing my name (again), and getting a PhD by 30.
But there's also been a lot of disappointment too. Not getting a job as a professor, multiple drafts of my book getting rejected, my marriage not being all sunshine and rainbows like the honeymoon period was.
The realization that the world was burning down literally and figuratively. That capitalism and democracy are not actually the best systems ever. That America is not free and noble like we were taught to believe.
That, in the end, we can't save the world. And maybe shouldn't even try, lest we come off as having a savior complex.
The realization that it's really been our ego running the show and driving the car this whole time, and we don't even know who we are or what we want to be. The we might have been living a lie this whole time.
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Which is worse? Save yourself from disappointment and live a life devoid of hope, choosing realism and pessimism? Or allow yourself hope, but experience the gut-wrenching grief and frustration of never realizing it? Or, allow yourself hope and detach from the outcome, being flexible when plans change? Be realistic by remembering the limitations of time and money, but plan fun things knowing that we only have limited time here on Earth?
You can't control others. You can't control the future. Allow hope but embrace disappointment as part of the human condition.
Yes, disappointment will come. Things will get cancelled. People will let us down. Plans will unravel. But maybe that’s not failure—maybe that’s life doing what life does: unfolding in its messy, uncontrollable way. And maybe being human means staying open to it anyway.
So I’ll keep hoping. Not because I expect it all to work out, but because hope keeps me alive. Hope connects me to others, to creativity, to action. And when disappointment comes—and it will—I’ll try to meet it not with too much bitterness. With the understanding that to hope is to be human. And to keep hoping, even after heartbreak, is to be brave.
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