Daily Jots

“People need trouble — a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.”
^{William Faulkner}

I thought I might be giving up my computer for Lent this year!  First it was those bookmarks, then it was some bad sectors on the hard drive – which of course, explains the bookmarks.  Anyway, it is fixed and I am back with hopefully a well-behaved computer! 

But it was very frustrating.  You know that feeling that computers can give you – that “I’m about ready to chuck this out the window,” feeling?  I’ve always thought that was why they named it ”Windows.” 

And I now am asking myself, and you I guess, is frustration always a negative emotion?

William Faulker’s quote above certainly says we need it.  To sharpen the spirit on?  I think what he meant by that was that without challenges, without obstacles that we have to think our way through, we just don’t grow.  Hence the comment about vegetables.  (Yes they grow, but not in the same way.)

Challenges and frustrations are the very beginning of thinking outside of the box.  They force us to take our vision to other alternatives that we would have never looked at before.  We may be frustrated and ready to rip out all of our hair, but while we are fussing and fuming, part of our brain is working on a work-around.  That part of our brain is the cause of our growth.

Next time your computer goes on strike, and you feel the sense of frustration welling up, consider your options.  Possibly there are other things you could do – maybe even need to do. 

Perhaps there are bigger problems within the situation that you would not have noticed had the smaller problem not occurred.  Remember, I thought it was the bookmarks, but it was a funky hard drive that could have caused me much greater problems in the future.

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is to — act as if it were impossible to fail.
^{Dorothea Brande}

“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}

“There came a point in time, with all the difficulty, all the frustration, where I was quite content to be where I was. I suppose one could call it a kind of enchantment, I don’t know.”
^{Madeleine Stowe}

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