In my work, I have countless occasions to observe people reacting to circumstances they did not expect. Consequently, I’ve been giving thought lately to the concept of “disappointment.”

How one handles disappointment, particularly the small disappointments that are inevitable in daily life, reveals a great deal about us, individually and collectively. We live in a culture where people generally expect things to happen the way they should. We expect situations to meet our standards and not to disappoint. In addition, precious little in today’s society fosters either the discipline of patience or the skill of anticipation. Consequently, we expect to have what we want, when we want it.

More than once in these pages I have lamented how the beauty of anticipating holidays has been stripped away by crass marketing strategies—for example, Christmas merchandise on the shelves in early September. It’s doubly dismaying to observe how quickly the European market is racing down this same, sad path. Already, in every city we’re visiting during my fall tours, I see the intrusion of early Christmas merchandising—items that once appeared so beautifully in the proper liturgical time frame, often as part of Europe’s glorious tradition of Advent Markets.

While this change may seem insignificant to some, it’s a vivid example of how the spiritual building block of “waiting” is stripped away. Looking forward to occasions—growing excited about them—should be one of the best joys of life.

True, anticipating is hard, especially for children (as it is supposed to be). Only those who develop skills in waiting can fully experience anticipation’s deepest rewards. Contrarily, when we lose touch with anticipation, and always presume life will meet our expectations, we become increasingly helpless in disappointment.

Most of us experience far fewer daily disappointments than our ancestors. Even mundane activities are shielded from disappointment. For example, we rarely find ourselves nowadays driving across town to a repair shop, only to be met by a sign saying “closed.” The technological tools that surround us (phones, internet) allow us to avoid such disappointments and the resulting frustrations.

And these tools do keep us well informed. We know when storms approach. We can track our package delivery down to the hour. Students get early-admission news about college via email. Over-the-counter tests tell us if a new baby is coming. That all sounds positive, doesn’t it?

Much of it is. But along the way, we are losing our ability to be patient. I recently commented about the disruptions to river travel this season due to  central Europe’s low rivers. My travelers have paid a lot of money to be here, sometimes saving years for their trips. But at what point does personal disappointment allow someone to rain criticism upon the ship’s ground facilitators who try their hardest to make the best out of a difficult spot? Will complaining add a drop to the unnavigable rivers?

This is a specific case and one not relevant to most people’s daily life. And I race to say that my Smithsonian fellow-travelers are outstanding in their sunny outlooks and cooperative spirits. But, still, such behavior is emblematic of our times. We see it nearly every day. At the least disappointment, someone  will burst out in anger. The offensive language that increasingly accompanies such outbursts would have fried the ears of our grandparents. It fries my ears today.

Behind these outbursts lies a hard fact—one we all must learn: we do not have full control over the events in our lives. We may be able to control our Amazon shipping speed. But when we assume our admirable prowess at micro-control in this world equals an ongoing power that shields us from disappointment, we become a fragile people. Going down this track, we lose the spiritual and physical muscle needed to handle the serious issues of pain that await every person at some point in life.

No one wants a return to the hardships that plagued the lives of previous generations, such as the trials of World-War II or the horrific stress imposed on people forced to live under Communism. But people in such circumstances developed magnificent patience. They also developed a powerful sense of humor, using one of God’s greatest gifts to push through their troubles.

At the root of the popular phrase “instant gratification” lie two contradictory ideas. “Instant” equals “now,” that is clear. But the verb to gratify actually points away from the meaning that we moderns associate with the word, namely, giving pleasure to ourselves right now.

The word gratification, in its earlier usage, evoked the idea of “bestowing grace upon” something or someone (1400s). And of course, implicit in the verb is the idea “to show gratitude.”

We lose our sense of gratitude when we decide, as individuals or as a society, that we should not have to endure disappointment or deal with inconvenience. We lose the chance to have these circumstances bestow grace upon us. Or, to reword, we lose the chance to grow in grace.

Grace has to be carefully taught, as do the qualities of graciousness and patience. And often, outwardly expressed disappointment masks a sense of insecurity, even fear, as persons face situations that they never expected to happen. Led by constant images to believe that only good outcomes are magically ahead of us, young people can be caught by the twists and turns of life. A common disappointment these days involves college graduates who emerge from school with little vision, no jobs, unimpressive skills, and massive debts that force them to return to parental homes like lost sheep. Whatever that 30 or 50 thousand dollars a year tuition was supposed to buy, it did not.

To take another example, the images of romantic love vividly marketed by the media routinely lead people into deep disappointment, as any 19th-century poet could have told us:

Amor is still a rogue: if you trust he’ll betray you!

Goethe, Roman Elegies VIII

A clever line from one of Goethe’s poem is one thing. The damage that occurs when young people pursue a false understanding of love is something quite different. It goes beyond disappointment. It can destroy lives.

Our spiritual quests, if based on false expectations and engaged in without patience or anticipation, can be gravely disappointing too. And while part of me rejoices in the fact that we Americans live in a lively, pluralistic society where all types of religious institutions abound, our spiritual development is not something that can be built by “church shopping” or a marketing approach to worship. The oldest admonitions—those that beckon from the Renaissance altarpieces, whisper into our ears from high up Baroque columns, and blaze through the eyes of glowing icons—do not change nor can they be altered to be more convenient.

One is reminded of the strong passage in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans:

We even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5: 3-5

The idea of “boasting of our afflictions” clashes mightily with our modern ideas, doesn’t it? But spiritual lessons of adversity will find us, whether early in our lives or in later years. To quote author Jeannie Ewing:

The mysteries of life grant that suffering is unavoidable, and the mysteries of faith enable us to press through them without a timeline of victory.

I am not equating daily disappointments raised in this essay with deep sufferings or adversity. But we must move away from participating in a culture that is easily defeated by routine disappointment, or takes it out on others as a personal umbrage.

Soothing disappointments needs to be part of the prayerful work we are called on to do every day. That may mean taking quiet counsel at our own disappointment, or listening more patiently to a tired or frustrated friend. It may mean helping to take the element of fear out of a circumstance that is worrying a colleague. It definitely means standing strong when a teen whines about how things have not worked out as expected. And it ought to mean helping our little ones develop patience and perspective as tools for handling disappointment.