My blog this week has taken a complete turn! Last Thursday I wrote on the subject of keeping your home free of clutter. I came up with wonderful ideas of living with little chaos.
Generally I save my blog as a draft email, update it, spell check and load it onto WordPress. Well, today unable to retrieve my emails, I set about deleting pictures, downloads from Whatsapp and emails. You can see where I am going here…………..
In a bid to free up space I mistakenly deleted all my draft emails bar three. My draft blog was not one of the three!
Initially I was annoyed and then disheartened. I had put time and effort into drafting that blog and was pretty pleased with the end result. Fellow bloggers will know that feeling of completing a blog which hit the mark.
Unless there is an emergency, Sunday evening is my blog posting day. I welcome the routine and I am part of a LinkedIn forum where we post weekly from Sundays. It would not be the end of the world if I were to post my blog one or two days late but I believe in discipline and consistency.
This “blip” made me ponder on the disappointments we face in life, some through our own doing and others no fault of ours. There was not a thing I could do to bring back that draft so I had two choices; to feel downtrodden or to move on and draft a new blog.
You can guess which choice I made!
How do you deal with disappointment?
How flexible are you when life takes an unexpected turn?
organisedlady 
“Draft email”? What’s that all about? Anyway, you may find the following “back up in advance” approach helpful in not accidentally deleting posts in the future:
(1) If you use any notes to write a post, put them in a Notepad* file; write your post in this file and name the file post_topic.txt or something to that effect.
(*I’m assuming you’re a PC user; if you’re a Mac user like me, put them in a TextEdit file.)
(2) When your post is finished to your satisfaction, re-save your work in a new file with a new name – say, post_topic2.txt – using the Save As… command under the File menu.
(3) Delete the pre-post notes in the post_topic2.txt file; copy and paste the remaining post_topic2.txt content (the post itself) into the WordPress template, and publish.
(4) Once your post is safely on the Web, trash the post_topic.txt file and hold onto the post_topic2.txt file (or vice versa, if there was something valuable about the pre-post notes) for future reference.
NOW, if something bad happens to the post_topic.txt or post_topic2.txt file before publishing, you have a second file to fall back on – this approach may require a bit more effort but better that than losing a post altogether. Good luck.
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Andy – I type my blogs as a draft email. Once finished I spell and grammar check before uploading on WordPress.
Thanks for your tips – much appreciated.
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I deal with disappointment by recognizing it’s not the end of of the world. My life will go on after my initial disappointment. I’ve set a goal of becoming a Life Master in bridge in the next two years. I haven’t always done well at the tournaments where I need to earn points, but I keep going back and trying again. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment!
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Jeannette – this is a great way of looking at disappointment. Life goes on despite the trials we face.
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I think being successful, is not how successful you are, but how you handle disappointment. You name someone famous in history, and I will show you someone who had a failure or disappointment, and they learned how to handle it.
Thanks for sharing.
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You have a good point William. There is so much we can learn about our temperaments.
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Apparently, I am super resilient. My therapist reminds me of that all the time 😉 I jest, but the best approach to life has always just been to get on with things.
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You have a good outlook on life Jeri. We have to dust ourselves off and move on.
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Losing your work after putting time and in effort in is frustrating to say the least, but sounds like you handled it with grace. I admire you turning a negative thing into a positive one!
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I can’t imagine you being downtrodden by much or for very long!
I’ve been disappointed this year to not place in any of the writing contests I’ve entered. Solution: keep writing and get better!
Bummer on losing the posts!
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Nice to know you have this perception of me Rose Mary. Often we are stronger than we think.
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Disappointment is a hard thing to overcome. I usually like to step away and go back to things when I’m disappointed. Sometimes that helps clear my mind.
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Love this! Good for you. I’ve yet to delete one of my blogs. But I live in absolute constant fear of doing so. So I can imagine how you felt when you realized your blunder. That is a true test to your will and you definitely passed.
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Thanks Erica. It is all done and dusted now. Looking back I could have allowed this to spoil my day – glad I chose not to!
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Hi Phoenicia. Sorry you lost your draft, but glad you came up with this one as I think it’s got a strong message. It’s great to have a routine and a focused work ethic, but we have to be flexible. I, too, had hoped to get my blog post done this weekend, but my brother arrived earlier than planned and so I only got to it today. That’s OK with me, as my time with him is important, so I know my priorities.
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Doreen – flexibility is important. I had to learn this the hard way as I am generally a black and white person with no shades of grey. We have to allow for the unexpected in life and go with the flow. Hope you enjoy time with your brother.
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Good question Phoenicia. I’m facing a challenge right now and if it doesn’t work out the way I hope then I’m going to be REAL disappointed! The first thing I do when something doesn’t work out is not pretend everything is okay. I believe it’s important to neither deny or stuff our emotions. Then I just try to look for the lesson or opportunity for growth in the experience and do my best to move on. Sometimes that’s much easier said than done.
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Marquita – being honest with who we are from the start allows us to move on. If we are upset/angry it is important to acknowledge it but not act on these emotions. This brings a sense of freedom and ownership.
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Hi Phoenicia, I’m dealing with a disappointment right now as I read your blog post. I have to ask myself, “How will I deal with this?” Like you, I am annoyed and disheartened. But I know from past experience that in a day or so these feelings will go away and I will be able to deal with the situation. Instead of chastising myself, I just wait it out. My resilience will kick in after 24 hours or so.
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Dr Rin – hope you are able to get past this challenge. Yes, the feelings always go.
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Disappointment is something that no human being can avoid. A grown up that has not learnt how to cope when they get disappointed either have mental or intellectual deficiences. As far as I’m concerned I just shrug my shoulders because to get disappointed is not important it’s just part of life.
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We all have different life experiences which contribute to the way in which we cope with everyday and challenging situations.
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This post certainly shows your flexibility in dealing with disappointment. We have all disappointments, big or small, come our way and it is natural to be sad and regretful for a period of time, but as the sign says “don’t stay too long.”
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Thanks for the encouragement Donna. I am learning to push on rather than focus on what went wrong. It has taken a long time for me to arrive at this point – believe me!
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