I Am Dedicated to Dying Without Bitterness

I have a lot of goals in this life. One of my goals is to die without bitterness.

Maybe you think this is a silly goal, but as I have gotten older, it is becoming more and more apparent how difficult this is going to be.

There are so many disappointing things that happen in this life.

As a child many of us believed that the sky was the limit. We looked at adulthood with longing, because we thought it would be filled with freedom. It seemed clear that our adult life would be the place that all of our dreams would magically come true.

We couldn’t wait to grow up.

However, as we enter into adulthood our hopes can quickly be met with a harsh dose of reality.

Adult life can feel quite monotonous and disappointing.

Our timeline for things like promotions, marriage or children is often different than we hoped. Our career can feel suffocating or stagnant. The money doesn’t always pour in like we expected. Married life is not always the honeymoon we thought it would be and parenting can often be more exhausting than we imagined.

Friendships can be difficult to maintain through the years. Unfortunately, some of our relationships become lost altogether.

And then there are the seasons of life that utterly break our heart and almost break us completely.

It is easy to become cynical.

Without even realizing it, our disappointment can lead us to embrace bitterness. Not all at once, but a little bit at a time.

The way I see it, I have two options:

to own my bitterness or refuse it.

To be clear, I know that bitterness comes with many benefits.

When I am hurt, I can use bitterness as an “off” switch. It allows me to hold onto my expectations and resent the way that things turned out. I can then move forward without processing my disappointment, grieving or forgiving anyone.

Bitterness can be quite comforting when I don’t want to walk through the healing process.

Becoming bitter can happen quite naturally, but it comes at a high cost.

Yes, it gives me a free pass not to heal, but it also keeps me stuck in the pain of my experience. My disappointments will forever have a hold on me until I choose to process them.

I am dedicated to living a life without bitterness.

The way I see it, it is a priority for me to master being disappointed. Not because I enjoy disappointment, but because I want to live free.

Freedom.

The freedom I sought as a child is the very thing I am longing to protect.

My freedom to dream.

My freedom to hope.

The freedom to be me genuinely and not hardened by life.

I will not take responsibility for everything that happens to me in my life, I will take full responsibility for what I do with it.

Bitterness is not for me, that is for sure.

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