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Nothing stings quite like failure and disappointment.

I recently suffered a pretty big disappointment in my professional life, and my first instinct was to go home, curl up on the couch, and cry until I passed out from pure exhaustion.

And while this instinct was fair (and to be honest, I gave in to it for a while), there came a moment when I asked myself, “How long am I going to let myself stay down before I get up and try again?”

To be fair to myself, I think I deserved to indulge in some downtime. When bad things happen (and they inevitably do), we’re justified in taking a moment to wallow in the horror that is life sometimes. However, the tragedy of life, I’ve come to realise, is that it will hurt us, because suffering is inevitable. Thankfully, at the same time, suffering is our biggest source of meaning in this life—and this means we have no choice but to get up and try again.

Author David E. Bell defines “disappointment” as “a psychological reaction to an outcome that does not match up to expectations.” Disappointment, in other words, comes from things not matching up to how we wanted them to or believed they would.

One of the most popular philosophies people turn to when faced with disappointment is Stoicism. According to the Stoics of ancient Greece, it is believed that our reaction to disappointment is more important than the disappointment itself. To quote philosopher Marcus Aurelius:

“If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.”

Essentially, Aurelius is referring to one of the foundations of Stoic philosophy, which determines that we should focus on that which we can control and let go of that which we cannot.

Moreover, the Stoics believed that the purpose of life—and our greatest source of meaning—is to make life better for other people. And let’s face it: we can’t help anyone if we let disappointment keep us down. We have all been granted specific and unique talents, and we all have a purpose in life; and no matter how insignificant we believe that purpose to be, what we do will make a difference in someone’s life. Even if our actions affect only one person (and it’s unlikely that an entire life lived will have such a small effect), it is one person whose life is different because of our existence. To me, that alone is reason enough to keep going in the face of disappointment.

Writer Teresa Shimogwa has the following to say about disappointment: “[When disappointment] turns into devastation, it becomes destructive and crushing, potentially putting [us] in danger.” Our goal, then, is to acknowledge disappointment (because ignoring it is not the answer either) without letting it devastate us. This also answers the question of how long we should let ourselves wallow in our disappointment: acknowledge it, give it the space to make itself known, and then move on to bigger and better things. Remember: we all have a purpose in life, and we have a responsibility to the world to fulfil that purpose to the best of our ability. Living a meaningful life comes from doing things that matter, and that is only possible if we can shift our perspective and pick ourselves up after a disappointment.

I recently found a practical way of changing the way I view disappointment in the work of behavioural scientist, Professor Arthur Brooks. In an interview with podcaster Rich Roll, he tells us to “never, never, never waste sacrifice. Never waste your suffering.” To achieve this, he encourages his students to keep a “failure and disappointment list,” the method for which is simple: we start out by writing down whatever disappointment or failure we have suffered in a notebook, and leaving two blank lines underneath this. A month later, we go back and, on the first blank line, write down something we’ve learned from the disappointment. Three months later, on the second blank line, we write down one good thing that has happened as a result of the disappointment. By doing this, we get to see that firstly, disappointments are opportunities to learn valuable lessons, and secondly, that they often open the door for new things to emerge. In other words, they are a source of meaning without which we can’t grow as people.

Make no mistake: even as I’m writing this, I’m a little worse for wear—and I’m in no mood to keep going. But at the same time, I have to acknowledge that disappointment, while being an inevitable pain in the ass, is an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to find meaning in a seemingly unfortunate turn of events.

Going forward, my plan is to ride the wave until it spits me out onto the beach; then get up, dust myself off, readjust my bikini top, and get back into the ocean.

Meaning happens in the moments when we have to choose between staying down or getting up and moving on—and without meaning, life has no purpose.

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