Are you frustrated with your life?

“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for... reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration.”   Casey Stengel 

"the Ol' Perfessor" was a baseball player and manager for the NY Yankees back in the early 1950s. His team is the only one to ever win 5 consecutive World Series. Casey understood what it meant to win. What you may not know is Casey took over the expansion NY Mets not too long afterward and proceeded to have a string of last place finishes. So much so the early Mets were nicknamed “the loveable losers”. Can you imagine what it would be like to be associated with one of the winningest teams of all time and then be stuck managing perhaps one of the worst? How frustrated would you feel? How does that stack up to the frustrations you have experienced in your life?

Frustration is the feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of an inability to change or achieve something. It is unmet expectations, resulting in an emotion. Frustration comes in many forms. Constantly passed over at work. Having a kid who can’t seem to make a good decision about anything. Stubborn fat that just won’t come off even after intense dieting and exercise. A spouse who spends recklessly. Traffic on a day you absolutely had to be on time. A storm on your vacation. What is your particular form of frustration? I have mine and I want to talk about it but first I want to add a quick aside.

The one form of frustration I see a lot lately is associated with people’s incessant need to protest. Now full disclosure, I see protests the way Casey does above. I fail to see the purpose of making signs and yelling at cars or a building so someone will hopefully put it in the news. These people seem more than happy to block roads, businesses, or whoever is just trying to get through their day. And what does that create? More frustration. I guess the general idea for a protester is I’m frustrated so you have to be too. All I see from that outcome is people becoming less sympathetic to their cause or plight. Not more. Have you ever seen a bunch of people protesting and thought “Huh, maybe I should revisit my opinion on something because a bunch of people gathered together with signs and screamed at people.” Yeah, me either.

If frustration comes from unmet expectations, who set those expectations? Are or were they reasonable to begin with? Are they something your parents instilled in you? Society? The media? Or did you come up with them all by yourself? Did you just expect that the world would hand you something or that you are um entitled to something or someone? There is a lot of work one could put in here that could greatly help with your frustration. Recognizing the source of the frustration (if it is unreasonable expectations) and tempering those expectations with some acceptance could go a long way to easing the burden you are carrying around. Unless you just love being frustrated all the time.

For me, and for many I have spoken to, my frustration emanates from a feeling that I was intended to do something more. That I am somehow out of place or in the wrong place or time or … It is hard to pin down where this expectation (and subsequent feeling) comes from. Now maybe you feel similarly. Like you have this vast store of potential that is just waiting to be unleased on the world and yet, day after day, sits dormant. Sure, you have accomplished some things. Maybe you have even had a little success. In my case, I feel like I have done lots of things and checked off a lot of boxes of things I wanted to see, do, or experience in my life. Yet, here I sit, frustrated. To my core I feel like I could be, no, I should be more. But I’m not. No, not celebrity or rich or powerful kind of thing. I don’t feel like I was supposed to be better than anyone else. I feel like an important cog in a machine that cannot find where I am supposed to go. Things would run so much better, for everyone, if I could just find where I am supposed to be. If we all could find where we are supposed to be. Instead, I just fumble around trying to do the best I can. Is that you as well? 

Now the internet, and all its “sources”, would tell us the feeling we are having is a sense of belonging that is missing. We don’t fit in somehow. We want to but always feel like we are on the outside looking in. Sure, that’s plausible. Human beings are social creatures after all. Even the best isolationist actually performs better when part of a team or tribe. If I was to guess, this is the actual reason people go to protests. It is not so much a chance to make a difference as it is to be around people who think or feel like they do. It gives them a sense of validation for their thoughts or beliefs because “See, someone else thinks/feels this way too. Lots of people do. Therefore, what I am thinking/feeling must be true.” Truth in numbers kind of thing. Ok, I guess. A chance to be our “true self” instead of just fitting in can be very powerful for overcoming emotional angst like frustration. Is your frustration just you looking for your “team”?

But that isn’t really my frustration. No, mine is what I am supposed to do, not who I am supposed to be around. In my little brain, I am the right tool for a job but cannot find that job. When I mentor people, I always refer to this as needing an alignment. I feel like a tire out of alignment. Sure, I roll down the road and get the job done but it’s bumpy, uncomfortable, and wears me out much quicker than would happen if I was properly aligned. Truthfully, I have searched high and low and tried a lot of different avenues to find my alignment. And there have been brief moments where I thought I had it only to quickly go out of alignment again. Life is cruel and not at all interested in my emotional feelings of frustration. And that, dear reader, is the point. There is no assurance I will ever not feel this way. No assurance I will ever find my alignment and just roll. My life may always be bumpy. The takeaway is to never stop trying. Never just sit on your hands because years of frustration have made you feel hopeless. Like it will never happen. There is no more equal chance of it happening as it not happening as long as you are still out trying. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take (Thanks Gretzky). Frustration is only a factor if I let it be a factor. It is (and may always be) there in the background of everything I do. You know what though? If I do ever find it (my alignment), I’m going to sit back and enjoy the ride because it will all be worth it. All the best things are. Happy hunting!