Frustration is nothing more than not getting your own way. Whether your sense of frustration comes from mechanical objects or people, something wasn't the way you wanted and thought it ought to be. Frustration ravages you because your predictions didn't come true. The door didn't open easily, or it broke, or you thought it would be easy to fix, and it's not. And you are seemingly angry with the innocent door or the innocent neighbor across the street when it is really yourself that you are frustrated with, for you thought one way, and an aspect of life turned out another.

You had all good intentions, and still you didn't ace the test. The test wasn't about getting an A. The test was about how you feel about yourself even in the midst of closed doors. You may feel that you succeed or fail and so you miss the in between. What a taskmaster you have become!

When you first learned to tie a shoe, you were happy you were learning. There was fun for you. Learning was finding out. You didn't always have to be on top of things. Why do you think you must be now? What would be left for you to learn if you already knew everything?

When you drive a car to a specified location, and it's not easy for you to find it, you naturally look for another way. You turn around. You start over. Or, you decide that you didn't really have to get there after all. You can go somewhere else or not go anywhere at all.

Or your mouth has been watering for a brownie, and when you get to your favorite bakery, you find they are out of brownies. Is this really cause for dismay and its accompanying frustration? Where was it written that everything must live up to your expectation, and, if it's not, that you must be unhappy?

Over big things or little things, sense of frustration is the same. You have convinced yourself that you are lacking. What can you lack but your own sense of self-worth?

The door you wanted to go through is damaged, but that does not mean you are. Do not damage your own reputation with yourself.

Sometimes Humpty Dumpty can't be put together. Then throw out the egg shell and find another egg to sit upon a wall.

Your heart is not made for the frustration you load there. Do right by your heart, and love yourself instead. Beloveds, you tried. You gave it your best. You meant to go somewhere, but the car wouldn't start. What has really happened but that the car didn't start? Who makes it a catastrophe?

The Earth moves. It does not stay in one place. Nor will you. Better to budge.

When you feel frustrated, you have gotten stuck somewhere. You have found an impasse. What is so awful about that? Impasses are impasses, and you are a Child of God.

You thought something was in one place, and it was in another.

Detours are helpful, not harmful. Success can be in going another way.

There is no book that you have to finish reading.

There is no car that has to start.

There is no door that has to open.

It may be you who has to be open to other gates.

Arise, beloveds. It is not for you to sulk. It is for you to stir joy. Stir it in yourself. Joy really does not lie outside you. You are the maker of it. Be a reveler in your own life. Dance this way and that. Dance.