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Frustration is only possible when you neither accept a situation, nor take any decisive action to change it. It lives in the gap between the two. If you accept the situation, the frustration dissolves. If you act on the situation, the frustration converts into effort. Frustration is what remains when you do neither.

Frustration allows you to indulge your indignation without any accountability. You get the moral satisfaction of being right about the problem, and none of the risk that comes with owning it.

In every case I’ve encountered, there are only ever two honest options. Accept it, genuinely, and stop paying the emotional rent. Or take decisive action, accepting that action carries risk and may not work.

The trick is this: you don’t have to like something in order to accept it. Acceptance isn’t approval. It’s simply the acknowledgement that this is the situation you’re actually in, rather than the one you’d prefer.

You always have choices, even when you don’t like them. Blaming your circumstances may feel justified, but it hands control of your emotions, your attention and your peace of mind to someone else.

INSPIRATION FROM OTHERS

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

“Complaining does not work as a strategy.” – Randy Pausch

QUESTIONS TO REFLECT ON

• What are you currently frustrated about, and how long have you been frustrated about it?
• Is that situation something you can genuinely accept, or something you can act on?
• What is the first decisive action you could take this week?

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