Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Victorious Living

Home
Family, Parenting and Religion
The Difference Between Disappointed and Violated

The Difference Between Disappointed and Violated

Last updated on: September 7, 2019 at 11:14 pm by Victorious Living

The Difference Between Disappointed and Violated 2019-09-07T23:14:17-04:00 Victorious Living

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It seems pretty clear that modern Americans are unable to deal with not getting their way. New styles of parenting blame institutions for children’s inadequacies and try hard to clear the path of any struggle. We’re increasingly perfectionistic, superficial, and angry. Suicide rates, divorce rates, and mental health rates are rising at a frightening pace.

Our society is becoming a hotbed for toxic individualism. Just last night, I saw a news report about a man who ran over a family of eight with his car. He killed the mother and injured the father and all six children. Why? Because the father asked him not to smoke in front of the kids.

The problem is that there are two kinds of not getting our way. The first is a violation – an attack. An affront to who we are that clearly endangers our wellbeing. The second is a disappointment. Someone does something we don’t like, disagrees with us, or makes a comment that offends us. We’ve merged these two kinds of not-getting-our-way into one. We are “bullied” anytime someone disagrees with us. We are attacked anytime someone says something we don’t like, and we are violated anytime we don’t get our way.

The Pendulum Swings

Of course, the danger in pointing this out is that some will use an argument like this to excuse oppressive behavior. We will blame true victims and violate one another with a sense of entitlement. This has been a prevalent reality in recent history. One for which we ought to be ashamed and held accountable.

How do we tell when someone is attacking us and when they are disappointing us?

Healthy living is about seeking the truth. As we become more and more emotionally charged, leaning on one aspect of the truth at the expense of others, we drift further and further from an ability to rightly discern what is happening to us, the motivations and hearts of those around us, and what we are to do in response. We have become reactive rather than responsive.

Freedom Circle

A victim is someone who has no choices. People do things all the time that limit our choices. But we are very rarely, if ever, in a situation where we have absolutely no choice. This whole idea is made famous in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, where he endures the tortures of a Nazi concentration camp while still taking responsibility for his own choices and his own character.

The truth is there is no clear-cut boundary for when we are being assaulted and when we are being disappointed. It is a blurry line between attack and offense. So, what we tend to do is push things from the murky middle to the extremes.

There are, obviously, some instances where we are clearly being attacked. When violence meets our physical body at the hands of others. When we are imprisoned unjustly.

But the middles are murky. In the end, the main differentiator between violated and disappointed is our own perception. The power of each individual is to take emotions, reason, spirit, and community to discern the world around them. And, perhaps more importantly, determine a response. We have to own our conclusions and own our response. And our response is not about punishing others, it is about influencing our character, our community, and our culture toward a better tomorrow.

So much of our tendency is to lay blame at the foot of others. And justify our own reactions. Thus, we have a world of terrorism, a world where people break windows because a restaurant doesn’t have what they ordered, friendships break up because of a poorly thought out tweet, and people run down families because they are challenged about smoking.

We have to be better about discerning the difference between attack and disappointment. We don’t do any favors to ourselves as true victims and others who are truly victimized by taking on the posture of a victim unjustly. If we want, everything against us can be an assault. It certainly makes it easier to figure out how to respond. We fight everything and everyone. But not everyone who disagrees with us is an enemy. Not everyone with a different viewpoint or a challenging question is an assailant.

We will never be able to heal as a society unless we commit to seeking the truth together, forgiving one another for disappointments, and holding each other accountable for assaults. These three pursuits are not mutually exclusive. If we leave one for the other, all three will fail.

Previous Post

April 5, 2019

How to Communicate Your Boundaries

Next Post

April 10, 2019 What Your Choices Say About You

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Choices Conflict Resolution Culture Change Emotions Failure Faith Fear Freedom V Growth Healthy Communication Hope Identity Influence Leadership Learn Mistakes Mood Curve Ownership Perspective Power Relationships Self-Awareness Self-Governance Systems Thinking Three Things You Control Transformational Leadership Trust Truth Uncategorized Values Vision

Select a Month January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who had a vision of a great sheet filled with unclean animals?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Paul Stephen Peter John

Books by This Author Books by Victorious Living

See All Titles »