What to do if your hero breaks your heart…
“Life is a succession of lessons that must be lived in order to be understood.”- Helen Keller
My title may appear snarky or even cynical title but no: life is hard. Life is unfair. Therefore, it’s crucial that we all have people whom we admire, who motivate us during the dark, exhausting times. Otherwise, what’s the point? We might as well give up. (Of course, we cannot.)
That’s why, of course, it can be so emotionally devastating when someone whom we revere as an inspiration breaks our heart. We all know people who gave up on themselves when someone whom they deeply admired made them feel worthless. A very close friend in high school, gave up on her wonderful art when her art teacher dismissed her work. My friend lost her spark and confidence, and threw away all of her art and talent.
But obviously, if I’m writing about this, I’m writing to remind you that yes, other people can, and probably will, at times, disappoint you, but what matters is that you don’t disappoint yourself. If someone whom you admire behaves in a way that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you’re going to have to get over it and keep going forward. Because otherwise, of course, you’ll end up punishing yourself.
I remember that in high school, one of my best friends was in therapy, and her therapist–an “interesting” woman, to put it politely–announced to my friend that she would no longer read any male authors. Ever. I still remember being 15, hearing those words and thinking, “…SHUT.UP.” When I say that wounded people sometimes react by punishing themselves, I’m always thinking about this woman. Some men, I assume, hurt her very badly, and instead of being able to understand that NOT ALL MEN were the man/men who hurt her, she dismissed the entire gender. She has a right to her feelings, of course, and I am in no way attempting to minimize the damages she suffered. But how does her decision to never read authors like Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Martin Amis and other men help assuage her pain? All she did was punish herself. She’s the only one who loses out in that situation.
And that’s the crux of the matter: if someone disappoints you, and you don’t mine that experience for life lessons, and allow yourself to move forward, you’ll end up paralyzed. You’ll end up being that (horrifying) person at the cocktail party, who’s 60 and saying, “Oh, I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” or,” One day, I’m going to write a book,” still embittered because in the 4th grade, you asked a boy to the Sadie Hawkins dance and he said, No, and so you never found true love.
I see this all the time. People are hurt by other people and instead of learning from the situation, they try to wipe it from their lives, allowing it to fester and give their pain and hatred ammo. Not super helpful. These are, frequently, the very same people whose Facebook/Twitter feeds are non-stop shout outs to Jesus, and quotes about why other people are so miserable, and you want to say, “Um, Jesus likes you…but not in that way. Help yourself! Take some responsibility. Learn what you can from the experience, and move forward.”
Otherwise, you’ll end up with a dangerous personal narrative; one in which you are utterly powerless, and frightened and alone in a cruel world, full of people who betray you. Listen to me: YOUR LIFE IS NOT AN EDWARD ALBEE PLAY!! People will betray you, people will break your heart, sure, of course, but you still have a responsibility to learn what you can, forgive yourself, and move forward. You still have to create a positive narrative for your life. We all know those people who are constantly depressed and helpless, bitching and moaning, cataloging insults from twenty years ago, and yet when anyone gives them constructive help, they roll their eyes and say, “But who has the time to do all that??” Oh. They have the time to complain, to feel sorry for themselves, to be so very sad, to post 4,000 proverbs from the Bible, but no time to take positive action. Yes, that’s a winning strategy. #oy
Listen: no one’s going to save you. People will break your heart, and hurt your feelings, yes, but if you’re expecting someone to magically rescue you from your life…meh, not so much. That’s your responsibility and your freedom. Because again: no one can disappoint you, like you can disappoint yourself.