#162 – What's your source of disappointment?

Every time you experience disappointment, it's because you'd dreamed up something (or someone), and then reality didn't unfold as you had pictured.

Your child didn't disappoint you with their grades; nor the apartment you rented for the weekend in the beach town that looked gorgeous on the website; nor the beach town itself; nor the restaurant you waited months to dine in that thousands were raving about on TikTok.

You did it to yourself. You appointed that event or person as the realization of your dreams – which is to say, your invention.

And then, when real life showed you the truth and it didn't match what you'd made up in your mind, you dis-appointed it. As though you could fire reality.

What if you fired your Ego, with its "futurizing" tendencies, instead?

Your Ego is like a CEO that's been appointed to save a sinking company and makes all sorts of predictions about how they'll achieve a successful turnaround. Sorry, but until the numbers in the bottom line don't add some zeroes to the right, words mean very little.

So, instead of listening to this optimistic and pretentious CEO that fills your head with ideal scenarios and potentiality, why don't you just relax into life, moment by moment, and watch it unfold?

How much happier could you be if you stopped dreaming ideal futures and focused on your present instead?

Love,

Carolina

PS: I've compiled the first 91 essays in this series in a book, Unfolding Your Mind: Notes on Ghosts, Power, and the Self. If you'd like to buy it for you or someone else, you can preorder it on Kindle or paperback here (it'll arrive before Christmas... Just saying!).