One of the sources of pride in being a human being is the ability to bear present frustrations in the interests of longer purposes – Helen Merrell Lynd
Have you ever felt deep-seated frustration at a circumstance or situation you felt powerless and unable to do anything about? Trust me, I know the feeling. It becomes even more worrisome when you see other people who appear less endowed succeeding in the spheres that you currently feel frustrated about. The pain is rubbed in when you allow yourself to be so overwhelmed by what appears to be your inability to do anything to remedy the situation.
The English Thesaurus defines frustration as “aggravation, irritation, disturbance, annoyance, nuisance, disappointment, dissatisfaction”. It signifies a discontent with status quo when measured in the light of your ideal. Frustration happens when there is an imagined ideal that far exceeds the present level and which serves as the basis for comparison. You are a lady in your mid-30s and no guy is asking you out. In the meantime, almost all your friends are married and you were on the bridal trains of several of them. Your frustration becomes aggravated each time you see a wedding invitation with the name of another friend on it as the bride!
As a schoolteacher who has just been promoted to Head Teacher, you felt happy. A few days later while waiting in the sun to catch a bus, along comes a guy who was two years your junior in secondary school, driving the latest model of an S-class Mercedes. It would not have been any concern of yours if he had quietly gone on without allowing you to see him. But as if he was sent to be your nemesis, he parks a few feet away from you, rolls down his window, calls your name, asks where you are going and offers you a ride. All through the journey, you force yourself to smile but your brain is in a riot as different thoughts flash through it.
Perhaps you were bypassed in a promotion exercise that you thought should have favoured you. Or you’ve been married for some years and you do not have a child but constantly come across people who have only been married for three years and already have two children.
As a parent, it could be the frustration of not being able to afford to send your children to a school of your choice for financial reasons. When my daughter was preparing to enter secondary school, I had to prevail on her to spend a year in a public school because I could not afford to keep her and her elder brother in the boarding house in private school at the same time. I promised her that things would change in the year after that. Thank God it did.
As a young graduate in 1982, my first job was that of a schoolteacher. I was dating a lady with whom I was deeply in love and was determined to build a future with. At a very critical moment in my life, her family convinced her to dump me because they did not think that I had a future. According to them, they didn’t think I had what it would take to take care of her. Because of what we had shared together, it was depressing to hear that from her mouth when she told me. I looked her straight in the eye and told her that her parents were not God and so did not have the final say on the issue of anyone’s destiny. A few months thereafter, I got a better job. Looking back, the frustration I felt at that time made me decide that failure was not an option for me. And indeed, God has been faithful!
When you feel frustrated about any situation, the problem is not with the feeling. Frustration is usually an alert system. And mind you, there is nothing wrong with you! Frustration is a feeling that God designed in us to auto-inform us about the conflict between our status quo and our ideal. After all, God’s frustration with the sin problem and the degenerate condition of fallen man produced the salvation plan through Christ.
Frustration is a two-edged sword. When you feel frustrated, your emotions are involved. You generate energy. One of the best definitions of emotion that I have heard is “energy in motion”. The real question is ‘Will you dissipate the energy or will you harness it?’ Heed sound advice from Ralph Marston, “Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.” And according to Samuel Ulman, “The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.”
Frustration is an invitation to change. It is an indication that present circumstances can no longer guarantee future expectations. Discontent with status quo in preference for a better situation is the impetus for change. Change is an invitation to growth. And growth is what we need to stretch into our desired future.
Your frustrations also alert you to the limitations of your present strategy. It shows that the way you are going about what you are doing now has certain deficiencies that need to be worked on if you must access the desired future. No matter how far you have gone in the wrong direction, it cannot take you to the right destination. Frustration is a way of letting you know that you may be going nowhere fast!
Frustration also alerts you to possibilities that you hitherto imagined were not possible. Frustration in a job has led many people to become self-employed and go on to become fabulously rich employers of labour.
Sometime ago, I worked in an organization where the CEO never thought that the opinions of the Managers mattered on any issue. Recommendations from our weekly Management meetings were never implemented. While I was mulling over why I had come to waste my time in this establishment, I had an inner witness that I had come to learn how NOT to run a business. At that point, my frustration disappeared, and I felt no sense of loss when I eventually had to leave the job. It didn’t come as a surprise that the company eventually went under receivership.
However, frustration is a two-edged sword. When not properly channeled, instead of taking decisions and setting goals to take you from where you are to where you would rather be, you resort to desperate measures that bring all kinds of kneejerk reactions. Unfortunately, after a while, your temporary victories only heighten your sense of frustration, which now arises from regrets – a realization that the situation could have been better handled. From that point on, you can only go in one direction, down! This is what drives people to crime, violence and in extreme cases where anger is turned inwards, suicide.
When you learn the lessons in it, frustration can be your greatest ally in determining the kind of person you need to become in order to accomplish your loftiest aspirations.
Feeling frustrated? Change is around the corner!
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
and then