Page 64 - WhoAreWe...

On Frustration

I heard somewhere that much frustration is caused by
unrealistic expectations. This sounds like a pretty good way
to look at it. As I think about people getting frustrated and
what they are being frustrated by — myself included — the
reasons often lead back to where an expectation is not
being met, and often there was no real, truthful reason to
actually expect it in the first place. The problem is that we
often blind ourselves to some realities, and then later are
painfully surprised to find out what is real. We do this
because once again, it is hard work, time-consuming, and
sometimes painful to really put the deep thought in to
seeing the deeper truth.

An example, and there are many, but one that covers a lot
of ground, is when people must realize that their parents
might have made some mistakes during their upbringing
and now they have to deal with any number of personal
issues caused by these mistakes. But the deeper truth is that,
even though they are supposed to love us more than
anything else in the world, and when we are young we see
them as beings created primarily to be our parents, they are
actually humanly fallible individuals who happened to
bring you into this world, and they can make mistakes just
like anyone else.

Folks would love to think that their upbringing was perfect
and their parents are infallible, but it is just not the case.
They make mistakes just like anyone and some of these can
have far-reaching consequences to their children. The good
news is that once you do the hard work and deep thinking
to see these deeper truths, you will be able to exercise true
forgiveness, for them as well as yourself, the true healing
will begin and you will experience much less in the way of
frustration and pain, freeing you up to do the better things

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