Life lesson - being let down

I have over the past few years had a lot of life lessons thrown my way, sometimes tossed gently my way other times thrown with sudden force - all of them have taught me something.

One of my pet peeves is being let down, I absolutely hate it being done to me and therefore try never to do it to others.

I know sometimes things are unavoidable illness and such, but I can't help but be disappointed and then usually cross when someone lets me down, fails to do what they said or fails to turn up when promised or cancels at the last minute without warning or what seems like a good reason.

I have had variations of all of the above, one spectacular event being when a friend arranged to come to my house for the day, I cleaned and tidied and cooked a meal for lunch and baked a cake...an hour after they were supposed to turn up I was looking on facebook whilst waiting and saw a status from them...saying how they were on their way to another place...a quick text later got me a weak apology that they had forgotten...

I do always put a lot of time and effort in when I have guests, because I like people to feel welcome, comfortable and honoured in my home.  I always do the housework and usually cook a nice meal or at the very least a cake!  To then be let down at the last minute especially if it is seemingly without thought is not nice.

I know this sounds like a whinge and to a certain extent it probably is, but what I wanted to share was the life lesson I have learnt from these experiences.

You cannot control others, you cannot make decisions for other people, you cannot make people act in the way you would or in the way you would want them too.  Yes I know it's totally pants when you get let down but there isn't much you can do about it and getting upset and cross is only in the long run not going to be good for you.

What you can do is remember next time to be wary of it.  If a particular friend keeps doing it, then you need to say something, although in my experience if they are that way inclined there isn't a lot you can do about it, the particular friend mentioned above is now just an acquaintance and one that I realised liked to use people, not that they realised they were doing it I don't think, but that's how they rolled.  Lesson learnt.

So when life chucks a lesson at you, learn from it - try not to get upset and definitely don't take it personally!

Every single person will have different priorities in life, you cannot rearrange their priorities for them.

Sometimes real friends will let you down and yes it hurts, but if they are real friends they will apologise and probably feel worse than you do about it, if you are a real friend to them you will forgive them.

Every action you take is your responsibility and remember that it will usually affect other people too.

Tansy
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