Innovations Roadmap #11

Frustrate [fruhs-treyt]

verb (used with object)

1. to make (plans, efforts, etc.) worthless or of no avail; defeat; nullify

2. to disappoint or to thwart (a person)

Verb (used without object)

3. to become frustrated

Adjective

4. frustrated

TOPIC: What frustrates you?

I can claim a lot of things about my emotions. I do not get jealous easily. I understand others’ humor, but my humor is rarely understood. I’m curious, I am a somewhat easy person to make happy, and I’m very good at hiding my emotions if it comes to it. I am also very, very easy to frustrate. Little things that shouldn’t frustrate me end up doing so. I frustrate myself. Most of all, other people frustrate me.

Those little things only become bad when I’m in a bad mood or stressed out, both of which happen relatively often. The days I’m stressed out are those days when it’s super late at night and I can’t work on my projects long enough to get a good effect out of it or I don’t get to work on my projects at all. On those days, what I see on the internet from other people and from friends and what I do myself all of a sudden becomes a scenario that is exaggerated way more than it should be. It’s ridiculous, but it happens. One specific website I go on always seems to be the worst place ever. It’s full of those little things that on a normal day I can completely ignore. On a bad day, it’s not happening. It becomes my enemy, something to tear down.

I don’t think I have the best display of talents ever. I can’t sing as well as I’d like, but I can probably sing decently enough, if what others say are true. But when I record myself, I sound like an absolute idiot, and I wonder why I even bothered to record in the first place. This puts me on the track for criticizing myself for trying too hard. This goes for piano, too. I am my own worst enemy at these points, because it always seems like no matter how hard I practice, I can’t get better at anything I do. I know I should keep trying because practice makes perfect, yet at the same time, the last thing I want to do is to practice because I keep getting the same results. I really end up frustrating myself when I don’t get the results I’m expecting in a short amount of time.

People I interact with have the greatest power to frustrate me, because I somehow succeed in reflecting things back onto myself. I’m going to talk about the ‘big problems’ and mentors and picking a class schedule for this section, because right now, that’s frustrating me the most. At first, I was frustrated because my problem is kind of unusual, and the only “big problems” ever referenced are usually some science-y. I can’t do science! How come I can’t be helped, just a bit? I got over that when I decided to mentally flip the bird and say, “Forget it. I’m going to find my own way to make this work because I CAN.”

See how that problem is related to myself? Here’s where other people come in: the majority of the people I talk to end up discussing how they’re just going to get the box checked. They’re not really going to try after this, and they’re just so apathetic towards it that I end up biting my tongue and not saying how much I’m looking forward to my project. A lot of the others say, “We don’t have to continue it after this class, right? We can turn in the roadmap, not do anything else, and not take the follow up class? That’s what I’m doing.” I end up staying quiet, in class and outside of it, because I don’t want it to look like I’m trying too hard. The thing is, I’m really looking forward to continuing my roadmap. 

It’s not just this class where I find that having other people’s opinions make me really frustrated. Those opinions are so loud and demanding. They tell me I must think this way or I must believe in this, and it’s posed to make it seem like that’s the only way or else you’re wrong in this or that. At the heart of everything, it seems like people my age frustrate me the most, and it’s no wonder I don’t like hanging out with them as much as I should.