Frustration arises when two conditions are met. First, we have the expectation of a different outcome and second, we perceive that we have done everything necessary to realize that expectation. Frustration arises at either the known or unknown quantity that we perceive as preventing our expectation from being realized. I am sure there are many individual manifestations that fall under the umbrella of frustration. Though they may vary in details at the specific levels they all result from that generic sense that our expectation was not met.
My frustration bubbled up over the last weekend. I was socializing with my friends and I was expecting a certain level of courtesy during a rather heated conversation. I perceived that I was being treated without that level of courtesy, despite the fact that I felt I was clearly extending the same or greater courtesy. I started to develop the feeling that I was being manipulated into a position where my only recourse was to be even more discourteous then the other people were being and I didn’t like it.
There were a variety of ways to deal with it. I could have waded into the conflict. I could have simply ignored it. I could have taken any one of the many options that lay between those two ends of the spectrum. But I could feel my temper starting to boil and I decided, rather suddenly, that the best thing for me to do was express my frustration and excuse myself before I lost my temper and said things that I might later regret. How many times have you seen in life where an argument breaks out and the original point of the argument is lost in the harsh words tossed about? Where the prick of a thorn becomes a wound? I wanted to avoid all of that, so I excused myself, expressed my frustration and headed out the door. It was the wise choice.
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