Chapter 5.10 Frustration

Frustration

“Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.”

Ayn Rand (1905-1982 )   Russian-American Novelist, Philospher

I realized that I had to write about frustration while attempting to repair a problem with the kitchen sink.  If you’ve ever attempted plumbing, then you know the type … you have to lay on your back in the most difficult positions, working around a maze of pipes, water lines, a garbage disposal, and a water purification system, trying to get two wrenches on a fitting that doesn’t want to budge, working with tools that are only made for this kind of repair.

The Leprechauns hide your wrenches, change the screw patterns on the fittings, and then ensure that the part you need is the one you don’t have in your stash of washers and parts that have been saved “just in case I might need it for a repair sometime.”

“Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen,

We daren’t go a hunting, For fear of little men.”

William Allingham  (1824-1889)    Irish Man of Letter and Poet

Although I can consciously realize I should just cool it, the frustration builds to anger, then to hopelessness. Perhaps when this happens, one should just wait until another day?

But once the water lines have been disconnected, you can’t really stop.  The kitchen sink cannot be nonfunctional for a day or two, waiting for the Leprechauns to have mercy and line things up for a good day of plumbing (if there really is one).

So you plug on with the omen ingrained that the joints won’t line up right and the water lines will leak before your one-hour job is done five hours later.

“My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual.”

Phyllis Diller    Comedienne

Thank goodness I have a garden that I can go turn over and over again, using first a pick to burn off the first build-up of adrenalin, and a spade-fork to continue my cardio workout for the long term.

“One resolution I have made, and always try to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.”

John Burroughs  (1837-1921)      American Essayist and Naturalist

Frustration builds when you are confronted with something that should be done, but at some level, you really have no control over it.  Now I’m not just talking about kitchen sinks here.  A lot of the frustration I’ve experienced has been through interactions with other people, concerning politics and other negative issues.

Things should be right, they should be fixed, the scales of balance should always tip toward justice.  But alas, the world is big and we are but a grain of salt with such little power to change its course.

However, there are people all over the world that are doing some part, some support function, to make things better.  Yet, it seems that most of the people around us are those finger-pointers that know the easy solution (why did ‘expert news pundits’ just pop into my brain?). I’ve always said that if a solution was easy, a simple mind would have solved it by now.

“There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”

Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)     American Journalist

Fruckstration (a typo that I decided to leave) can be dealt with by using detachment.  Step back, take a breath, realize that you could be spinning in circles on the way down the drain. Can you do anything about that which frustrates you?  Are you willing to take action?

If you can’t, LET GO! Stop! Release! It must not be important for you at this time, and Frustration, like Anger, only takes its toll on you, nobody else … (although a bit does land on those that have to be around you).  All of that valuable, inner energy is lost … gone … used for no gain … only for internal destruction.  Only get riled up about things that you can change. Then act.

Fixing the frustration is easy to say, but not so easy to do.

“You’ve done it before and you can do it now.  See the positive possibilities.  Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it positive, effective, unstoppable determination.”

Ralph Marston     Writer, Daily Motivator

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