To decrease suffering in life, it is essential to be familiar with the concept of frustration. It is important to know what frustration is, why it happens, and what to do with it when it shows up in your life. This knowledge is critical to tackle it as frustration is the stuff life is made out of. Moreover, frustration is present in every aspect of our lives and in every stage of development. This has always been the case for every human being that has ever walked this planet. The presence of frustration is our ultimate reality. This is the case as the Universe has not been designed with our comfort in mind. For this reason, life cannot be cured—it can only be managed.
In the last decades of the 20th century–and particularly in the early decades of the 21st— frustration and its intolerance–have become widespread psychological phenomena. In this quarter century, there has been a significant increase in the feelings of frustration felt by large numbers of people in the United States and around the world. These feelings are accompanied by an inability to cope in the face of obstacles. This inability leads to to feelings of despair, anger, and anxiety in millions. This high level of frustration seen in across the board in the 21st century is the source of an epidemics of learned helplessness. And it is this helplessness in the face of unrealistic expectations that predisposes many people to depression . The best that I can put it to you is that life on this planet can best be defined as “an exercise in frustration” from the moment you are born until the moment you die. Thus, not acknowledging this reality of life leads to an excess of suffering in life.
Whether we like it or not Frustration shows up in every aspect of our lives
We are born in frustration (notice that babies are born crying not smiling); and we grow up with frustration. As children we cannot do what we want–but what our parents, educators, and society wants us to do. In youth, we have to deal with the frustrations of career choice, of facing rejection in love, and of overcoming the hurdles to access education and work. In our middle years, we are frustrated by work and family demands, productivity pressures, and by micromanaging supervisors. For those who choose to marry, they have to face the conflicts of marriage and its conundrums. They have to figure out how to live in an ongoing battle of wills that is the norm today in established relationships. If they have children, an added source of challenges appear. In today’s world, when after much trying, the relationship does not work, married people face the problems of separation and divorce. And ultimately, for those who choose not to marry–those who avoid relational conflict altogether–life is just as difficult if not more. Loners experience the frustration caused by long-term isolation, disconnection, and loneliness.
In mid-life we have to face more responsibilities, financial stressors, and the struggle for survival that is getting harder by the day. As adults, we are forced to figure out how to support ourselves and our families. This is the time when most young adults decide whether to settle down, to grow up and take responsibility for our actions, or to continue living in the adolescence mode. It is by this time that people in our culture decide whether to have children or not and/or whether to start planning for their future and for retirement. Moreover, many of those who have children have to deal with the trials of bringing up defiant entitled children. Years later–even bigger problems show up–when these children become adults and they keep causing parents never-ending headaches as they choose to live in persistent adolescent mode.
Technology has not solved our problems
In the 21st century–even if technology has simplified some aspects of existence–we have to deal with psychosocial stressors never known to preceding generations. In the US, we have to face random acts of violence in schools, workplaces and public gatherings; we have to face the rising levels of insecurity, and the growing financial stressors caused by high inflation and stagnant salaries. These are accompanied by the higher expectations in the young and middle age people now faced with limited resources that have robbed them of the possibility of planning for their future. In the US, these feelings of futility in Gen Zers and Millennials have only worsened since the 2020 pandemic. This is the result of the fact that since the COVID19 pandemic we have had to deal with more severe illnesses, more health care problems, coupled with a lack of adequate health care access. These realities have brought about more death and loss. This dire event kicked off a domino effect of negative social, economic, and personal events that have led to a worsening of our levels of mental health across the board. In the post-pandemic years, we are now dealing with worsening survival problems: it is harder to afford housing, there is more job insecurity, and it is harder to make ends meet. This is even more acutely felt by the younger generations starting out in life. And to top it off–and despite the promises of the Affordable Care Act–it has been getting harder for most people in the US to access health care for ourselves and our loved ones. These circumstances leads large numbers of Americans to anger and frustration with the system.
For many people in their forties and beyond, there comes the additional frustrations that stem from caring for aging parents. People in the XXI century are living longer than prior generations. Thus, there is more frequent need for long-term care caused by dementias, health conditions, addictions and disabilities. These new realities test our patience and strain our pocket-books. These events happen at the time when many people are dealing with their children’s rebellious behavior and with their own relational and marital discord. This set of stressful circumstances creates a perfect storm in people’s emotional lives.
In the last three decades, the sources of unhappiness have multiplied in the US and they now include these additional factors:
- Struggling with grown-up children with personality and substance abuse problems
- Dealing with unresolved situations in highly dysfunctional relationships
- Surviving an unprecedented financial crisis and the uncertainty of losing one’s job
- Taking in adult children because of the housing crisis.
- Struggling to figure out how to deal with children’s self-injurious behavior
- The frustration of facing adult children’s unwillingness to change.
- Accepting the fact that climate change is making life on this planet more difficult for everyone.
Common frustrations after you are past 50
Ultimately, past our 50s, people suffer from the pains of dealing with more frequent personal losses. These losses put individuals in touch with their own mortality and make them feel powerlessness in the face of destiny. Not infrequently these losses take place at the time when people develop chronic medical conditions themselves. And, to make matters worse, at that age, we start to realize that personal losses multiply as we age. All these losses coming at us at the same time oftentimes lead to feelings of despair and disappointment in life. In these circumstances, it is not uncommon for many to feel that life has lost all meaning. And this sense of meaningless is reinforced by the sensation that nobody loves us or cares anymore. It is a fact of live that in the 21st century people’s hearts “have grown cold” and we are all suffering the consequences of this change in people’s hearts. In a nutshell, at this stage in our lives, we come to understand why the first Noble Truth in Buddhism says: “Life is suffering.”
Lack of love, frustration intolerance, and human disconnection: the main sources of psychological distress in our time
From my perspective–taking into account what I see day in and day out in my office–the most common maladies of the 21st century are a sense of social disconnection and pervasive loneliness. In the 21st century, people in larger numbers feel sad, angry, unloved, and unmotivated. Overall, individuals in the today are more spiritually distressed than in previous historical times. As a result, many feel life has no purpose to the point of rejecting the idea of having children altogether. In this century, there is in many a growing feeling of hopelessness and of meaninglessness in life. And these feelings are accompanied by a deep sense of inner void. These feelings of emptiness are even more pervasive in the younger generations than in other age groups. These feelings often lead people into drugs and suicide.
The distrust of others
On the other hand, large numbers of individuals live in fear and in distrust of others. Most people in the US today live lives of constant pressure, being stressed out by the excessive demands placed on them by work and family. Millions more suffer from panic about their future, from a loss of idealism, and a loss of hope in the future of humanity. As a result, many isolate themselves or escape into substance use and into consumerism, all forms of immediate gratification. The young of today–as many recent studies reveal–have less significant relationships in their life (fewer friends) than in the past; and they spend less quality time with them. Likewise, romantic relationships do not last and keep on failing over and over again. This isolative trend in Americans has only been aggravated since the 2020 pandemic.
Frustration is defined as the most common negative situational feeling in a person’s life.
- It is frustrating when things do not go our way.
- It is frustrating when people we love do not love us back or cut us off their lives without explanation.
- It is frustrating when we cannot reach our goals in spite of our best efforts.
- We are frustrated when the world does not respond to what we expect or care about our wellbeing.
- It is frustrating when we fail once and again to change people, life, and events that are beyond our control.
- In summary, frustration appears whenever the round pegs do not fit into our neatly arranged square holes and that makes us angry and depressed. And this goes on and on…so, we have to accept that frustration–just like death and taxes–is an inevitable fact of live for every human being.
What can do about frustration then?
American culture and immediate gratification
The inability to come to grips with this concept is a problem in American culture in the 21st century. This happens because in the last half-century we have gotten used to the idea of immediate gratification (the “Immediate satisfaction or your money back” adage that harks back to the realm of corporate business). For this reason, over the years Americans have gravitated to an ever-faster pace in living and to the pursuit of immediate gratifying results in every endeavor. This is seen, for example, in the way we eat in America. Most people in the US eat fast food and in a hurry. They gobble down unhealthy foods on the go because of time pressures and to obtain the immediate gratification these “Frankenfoods” bring about. These eating habits have led to an epidemic of obesity, diabetes–food addictions–that we as a society don’t know how to handle now.
The seeking immediate gratification is also seen in the area of sexuality, where many people jump into bed with others without even knowing them and without considering the risks involved leading to an epidemics of sexually-transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancies. In the same vein, since the advent of the internet, the online porn explosion has led millions to become porn addicts. This additive tendencies are even more evident in people’s habits, such drinking their problems away or self-soothing by taking the shortcut afforded by alcohol, drugs, and comfort foods. This post-modern attitude about self-gratification has done immense damage to our ability to develop tolerance to frustration and personal resilience. These psychological changes in the masses have eroded our capacity to postpone gratification, which is an essential ability to do well in life. This is the case as the fastest routes to gratification are not the best choices for our long-term well-being.
There are no short-cuts to happiness.
Chemical substances, fast foods, and casual sex offer us temporary highs. They separate us from our reality for a while. And we may find solace in them as we get our “kicks “and relief from our pains. But we delude ourselves when we believe that by engaging in these activities we are “enjoying life in the here and now.” This is the “You Only Live Once” (YOLO) philosophy that prevails today in our culture and that is so destructive for the physical and mental health of millions. We delude ourselves by thinking that we are “living it up” and “partying it on” in living for the now. In the meantime, our physical and mental health deteriorates and our relationships flounder. In this process, our long-term goals and chances at success and meaning in life are sorely missed.
The antidote to frustration is patience coupled with an attitude of a radical acceptance of what is.
Patience is realizing that things and people will never behave exactly the way we want them to. This is the result of the fact that they are different than us. Patience is the ability to step back–calm ourselves down–and learn to wait. This patient attitude requires detachment from the situations and people that bothers us. Patience has to be coupled with endurance to overcome the frustrations life is always throwing at us.
Endurance is the ability to go on when the going gets rough
Endurance is necessary for developing long-term resilience. It can only be achieved by working on self-discipline and by applying a drastic change in the way we think and the way we approach life. To become more resilient, we need to change our attitudes and our internal dialogue. This is even more necessary when things don’t go our way. And, as we age, we need to learn to tolerate more pain, more anxiety, more losses–and more disappointments–than we ever expected. This training in self-discipline involves learning to tolerate frustration without getting discouraged along the way. In a way, it is an exercise in “learned stoicism” or “frustration management.” And a degree of stoicism is essential on our road to life contentment and to decrease our suffering. Self-discipline is ultimately the path to personal growth and self-reliance. We have truly matured when we realize that, in the end, we can only rely on our own selves. As individuals, even if we are surrounded by many, we are ultimately alone in the Universe and we have to take a stance on how we are going to handle the blows life deals us. Whether we are prepared to do it or not life does not care. But only the the disciplined in hardship will be able to handle difficulties when they arrive and will not give up in the face of adversity.