A Tide of Disappointment

This morning I found out who Dr. Amy Bishop is but the event that made her notorious occurred last Friday when she went on a calculated shooting spree at the University of Alabama that left three faculty members dead and three injured. Apparently, Bishop had been denied tenure (permanent status as a university professor) earlier that day.

Clearly this woman is extreme and has an inability to deal with disappointment and I can’t help but find it peculiar that one of the more common reactions to disappointment is rage bent on vengeance. It leads me to questions beyond just why she did it? Why do any of us respond in anger to disappointment? What is the natural correlation between disappointment and revenge? Surely we don’t arrive on earth with expectations about how our lives should play out but somewhere along the expedition that is life, we create constructs or are taught them.  We divest ourselves of energy and devote time to higher education, for instance, not in hopes of anything but rather expecting the security and status that accompanies being one of society’s elite. And does it say more about our deluded perceptions of how much we actually control?

Shooting sprees have become common enough that I’m prone to think these episodes reveal a more common insight about the human condition. Of course we’re ill equipped for a future we haven’t seen when we expect the world to bend to our finite understanding. Moreover, when our limited paradigms are challenged by the likes of cancer, downsizing or walking papers via a bad break-up we reel out of control. We live in a world which diminishes the need for character scaffolding  and you can see the evidence in our heroes and heroines. Don’t you wonder why Nicole Richie is famous or how awards shows garner such outstanding ratings? The emphasis is on worshiping people all the while moving mentally away from the daily reality – the rubber and road marriage featuring you vs. any number of obstacles. The point is that we all do well to understand that among the details that comprise life is disappointment. Those ill equipped to deal with it usually hurt people and I dare anyone to disagree though I welcome it. Tomorrow’s blog post…how do we get equipped for the crap that lies ahead. Smile, you’ll like the answer to this one.

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Category: Character

3 Comments on “A Tide of Disappointment”

  1. If I had a degree in psychology I could weigh in. The best way to understand an individual who acts irrationally is to take a look at how functional their upbringing was. We all suffer from different levels of abuse because our parents weren’t equipped either. When we become adults we have to make the choice to learn how to function in spite of that. My two most enlightening reads in understanding this in my own family were “Facing Codependence” by Pia Mellody and “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman. The first will help you understand why we respond and react differently, the second will show you that we are all equipped to retrain ourselves. Retraining ourselves to me is evidence of God’s grace.

  2. Thanks Julie. I agree that deficits created throughout our formative rearing grossly affect our ability to deal with adversity. I’ll have to check out the book by Mellody. I think helping young people heal must become a priority given the abandonment and hands-off attitude I’ve seen from parents via my teaching days. The obvious next step is teaching self-control so that people don’t grow up thinking being hurt gives you the right to hurt others.