Frustrations and expectations

In my life I have barely thought about frustrations. Even if I consider myself a mature person, I don’t think I have really dealt with frustrations. And thinking harder about it, the only reason I could come up with is that I consider myself a solver. And as a solver, it’s very hard for me to give up. Not to say that I feel I’m a pretty stubborn person. So frustrations have always been problems and challenges I had to solve.

What is a frustration? The feeling of being upset because of the inability to change something. Well, at some point I guess you need to tell yourself you can’t change something.

In my amateur basketball life I would do as Drazen Petrovic, repeat, repeat and repeat. In my triathlon/runner passion, I train and train. As a software engineer, I read, ask and iterate to make things better. However, there is still a large portion of life that is not about you but others.

And when you get frustrated with others, it’s just because the expectations are not correct. Oh boy, what did I say? Expectations are not correct, maybe precise. Oh my god, even worse. Maybe the reality I need to face, is that when I get frustrated I feel I should just not have any expectations.

Let me tell you about a couple of recent frustrations.

A very good friend had a strange response when discussing about Covid and them testing positive. They mentioned : they did not care I was concerned about them. As if that did not matter in the subject of the discussion. This hurt me badly. My expectation for friends is that they appreciate what you do for them. Even knowing that I usually give more than I receive. However, not being sensitive to other’s people time/effort/concern sounds like an egocentric.

I’m very frustrated about this. I had some expectations for our friendship. I should speak up and confront it. But what will I gain? Respect? I believe the only gain would be love. I believe the only reason is to make that person understand that I’m concerned about our connection.

The same happened with a person I care a lot. All our conversations end up in a feedback battle about you or I. I try to give feedback as I’m trying to coach some of their concerns, and all ends up being useless. Nothing changes and the conversation becomes more and more aggressive. Even to the point where I doubt about the other’s education, and not as in school but as in manners.

Again, I’m frustrated because of my expectations. Or maybe I’m simply too stupid to read their minds and accept that they don’t want my opinion, they just want theirs.

Maybe the solution cited Google’s results: Here’s Manson’s definition of not giving a fuck means: It’s not about being indifferent, but being comfortable with being different. To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first care about something more important than adversity. You are always choosing what to give a fuck about.

And what do I give a fuck about if it’s not the connection and the relationship with others? To me, that’s the only thing that you’re taking with you when you die.

And now that Christmas is coming, remember, your expectations are absurd. But that does not mean you can’t continue enjoying life and loving others.

I will write more about this…