Despicable (Disappointed) Me!

I'm not afraid! Ok, maybe a little.

I was all proud of myself for making a big breakthrough in my book and my life a couple of weeks ago and was sharing it with my therapist who, as she annoyingly does, then pointed out something completely unrelated that apparently wasn't so clear to me. She made the statement that she thinks I'm afraid of people.

What?! I have no idea what you could mean... I am one of the most friendly, extroverted, outgoing, people-loving people I know. 

Yes, but what I mean is that you don't trust them, or the universe to not disappoint you- so you only anti-up so much and never go all in. You don't trust that you'll find your ideal job without having to sacrifice your ethics or feeling like you have to do it all yourself. Or just because you have lost in love, you don't think there's someone out there who could be a match for you-- in a world of how many billions?  

You don't have to believe in God to have faith in something; if you did you wouldn't feel the need to be so in control of everything. You're the worst kind of optimist, one who's subconsciously positive the world is going to disappoint you.*

Crap! I hate it when she's right. Ok, I'll admit it, the nasty little secret about me is that I don't trust people. I live disappointed in who people turn out to be. I love the vulnerability in people, but hate it when they're weak. I love the inspiration in people's stories, until I see the hypocrisy of them not living it every day. I'm more impressed with someone I have low expectations of that surprises me then someone who I think is great but find out is merely human.

As I'm driving home a slideshow of the disappointers in my life starts playing in my head and I am nauseous by the time I'm halfway home. As I talked about in the post The ME-ness of Meanness it is what we hide about our humanity that causes our suffering. So here is me admitting my nastiness. And even though I doubt I can completely cure myself of this issue, I don't want to be afraid of anything as essential to my life as people.

I have a friend, Justine, who always said: never expect anything from anyone and you won't be disappointed. She is such a sunny and warm person I was shocked at how negative and pessimistic that sounded. But now I see maybe having no expectations of life or others frees us up to put everything at stake just for the hell of it... because really what do we have to lose? Better to trust myself to handle the disappointment and anything that comes after the fact then not to have faith in people, love, and the universe.

*this may or maybe not be what she said, but this is what I heard