It’s hard not to feel disproportionately let down by a minor disappointment sometimes. I mean, it’s in the word — a disappointment is a thing that disappoints. Even if it’s something small, that can suck.
I didn’t have a specific question in mind this week, I just wanted to draw a card to give me some clarity and something to think about. Go figure, I drew the Five of Cups… Or, as I like to think of it, “the whiny punkass card.”
Maybe I’m not being fair, though. This is also a card of bereavement, loss, and heartbreak. The thing is, those things can all be represented by other cards in the deck. The Five of Cups carries its own particular connotations here that they don’t.
Observe:
This guy is clearly upset about the three upended cups in front of him, and understandably so. What’re those things, gold? They’re probably pretty expensive cups full of some bomb-ass wine, or extremely fancy water. Here’s the thing, though: There isn’t even anyone else in the image. He’s probably the one who knocked them over in the first place. Even if he wasn’t, what did he do, leave his expensive cups alone on the ground where raccoons could get at them? Do not put your cups on the ground, guy, that idea is bad.
That’s not all. While he’s weeping into his cloak about his three dumped over cups, there are still two perfectly good cups behind him. Not only that, there’s a river like ten feet away. Just pick up your cups and go refill them, my dude. It would not even be difficult.
Anyway, I am sorry to say that this is pretty apt. I’ve experienced an extremely trivial disappointment (a payment processing company deemed my business against their TOS, and I don’t even have the energy to argue the point right now), and let it more or less ruin my night. This will not do. As much as it sucks to be made to feel like I’m not good enough for a credit card processing company (of all things), I have so much else I could be focusing on that isn’t that. I mean, they’re not even the only payment processing company I work with. This situation is literally less important than finding out that Mr. Yogato’s froyo place is out of bananas and Teddy Grahams.
That’s not the only disappointment I’ve had, but trust me, the other ones are even more laughable.
And yet… It stings and I complain.
I have more than two cups still full behind me. There are rivers around me. The loss is closer to a shot glass than it is to three chalices. It’s going to be okay.
Marble Crow 