Frustration Matters

"I was an accomplice in my own frustration." -Peter Shaffer

Oh boy, I was ready to bring the wrath of letters and phone calls down upon the computer company. A delay by their order processing department created a situation that I had never encountered before. It created a situation that would cost me extra money and time.

Would the company try to make amends in some fashion? Would they truly try to make it right? Alas that was not going to happen. The person I had on the line was in a different department and I would have to contact another department to discuss it.

The veins on my neck were likely bulging slightly and I would admit I most likely raised my voice a bit. The frustration was growing quickly. It seemed very much as if I were trying to get out of a building but every hallway was a deadend. You know what I am talking about, that feeling of lost control over the situation.

Even a motivational writer such as myself can get pulled into these moments. It is easy for anyone to fall into the trap of frustration. The outcome is pretty much determined by how you respond though.

I could feel myself growing angry and other might get emotional or desperate. It could have gotten down right ugly but I stepped back and started to breath. I took those minutes of being "on-hold" to calm myself down, to take back control of my own emotions. It was not the person on the other end of the phone but the situation we were both in. It was a stalemate and nothing good was going to come from an extended debate.

So I resolved my situation and found the peace inside that I was going to need to move on. Was the resolution of the issue satisfactory? No it wasn't but I evaluated just how much it was worth to my own sanity to let it become a huge deal in my life. In the end it wasn't worth the aggravation and energy. In the end I decided to just move on from it.

You have to make those decisions as well. Is it worth the fight, the anger, or the pain? I would say that it is not worth it. You have so much more to do in life and getting held up by the frustration that is bound to come along is not worth the time spent. That time is better spent getting to where you want to be in life.

Frustration is out there, somewhere, waiting for you to come along. How you deal with it is up to you. How you come out of it on the other side is up to you. It is better to just get past it and onto something greater. And that something greater is your life.