Have you ever felt really disappointed? When we were children perhaps we received a gift at Christmas or our birthday, and we were expecting something really exciting that turned out to be socks or handkerchiefs and were so disappointed. Or perhaps as children or adolescents, a close friend disappointed us— the person we trusted let us down and we realized that he or she wasn't such a good friend after all. As we grow older, maybe we have felt disappointment in career or vocational expectations. When we've been disappointed as children or even as adults, it's sometimes easy to become somewhat disillusioned. We say, I won't let myself be disappointed again; I just won't hope or be open any more— they won't get to me. But this subtle attitude of rejection keeps us from being open when something even greater than anything we could have imagined or expected comes our way. Drop it and stay open regardless of the past.