The Cause of Frustration
”Ah, yes. But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple, or an orange… but you will get a peach.”
Frustration comes from a gap between your expectations and reality. When things don’t turn out you hoped or anticipated, you feel dissatisfied and annoyed: understanding this gap between expectation and reality is key to managing and reducing your frustration.
Your Expectations
Expectations are your beliefs or assumptions about how things should be. They come from your experiences, desires, the norms of the society you were raised in, and personal goals. Some expectations are clear, like setting a goal to finish a project by a deadline. Others are assumed, like people around you will be considerate.
These expectations help you navigate life and make decisions, without them, you’d constantly be on edge, having to prepare for potential circumstances that might never occur.
The Reality of The World
Reality is the actual way things unfold, independent of your desires or plans. It’s influenced by many factors beyond your control, including other people’s actions, environmental conditions, random events, and unforeseen circumstances.
Because reality is unpredictable and uncontrollable, you try to plan around it, making decisions with foresight based on the past as best you can, but it’s never Perfectionism - the real world is ever changing and can throw you for a loop at any time.
How the Gap Causes Frustration
Unrealized Effort
When you invest a lot of time and effort into something and the result falls short of our expectations, you can get frustrated. For example, studying hard for an exam but not getting the grade you wanted can be deeply frustrating. Despite the extra time used, you still didn’t get the success we strived for, so it can feel like you lost twice: both failing the test and the loss of the additional energy spent. Thus, frustration arises.
Unmet Expectations of Others
You often have expectations of how others should behave or respond, which is only natural. When they don’t meet these expectations, you feel let down. For instance, expecting a friend to remember your birthday and feeling disappointed when they forget creates frustration - you want to feel important to them, and the unmet expectation brings with it the sense that you are less important to them than you thought you were.
Unrealistic Standards
Setting goals or standards for yourself or others that are too high or unattainable will lead to frustration. For example, perfectionists often feel frustrated because anything less than the standards they set feels like a failure, leading to a cycle of frustration, anger, sadness, abandonment, and setting of a new unrealistic goal beginning the cycle again.
Unexpected Obstacles
Life is full of unexpected challenges that can derail your plans: these unanticipated events will create a gap between what you expected and what actually happens, leading to frustration. For instance, a sudden illness can ruin your plan for a much-anticipated trip, leading to alterations, or even cancellation.