Date Posted: December 9th, 2009
If I had to bet, I’d say that at least 90% of frustration comes from reality not matching our expectations.
Example: You’re frustrated with your spouse because she didn’t do the dishes. (Read: You expected her to do them and their not done.)
Example: You’re frustrated with your parents because they treat you differently than your sister. (You expect them to treat you both equally and they don’t.)
Example: You’re frustrated with the cell phone company for charging you an outrageous fee for going over your allotment. (You expected them to at least notify you when you went over.)
Example: You’re frustrated with the water heater breaking after buying it only a year ago. (You expected it to last another 10 years.)
Example: You’re frustrated with your boss because she doesn’t heed your recommendations. (You expect her to act on your recommendations.)
Example: You send a party invitation with the logistics info included, and someone replies to the email asking where the party’s at. (You expect people to read their email.)
And so on. What these examples have in common is that the frustration is in response to an external stimulus. You expect something you have no direct control over to respond a certain way. When it doesn’t, your response is to be frustrated.
I do this all the time. I expect someone or something to act a certain way and he/she/it doesn’t. I expect an authority figure to respond a certain way. I expect my friends to act a certain way. I expect my coworkers, my board members, my singers, my fellow musicians, my family to act in certain ways, and when they don’t I get frustrated.
This behavior is, of course, really silly. I have no control over anyone other than myself. And even if I did, that doesn’t mean they can read my mind. They don’t know how I expect them to behave. Not to mention that these beliefs on how the world works come mostly from my social conditioning, which we all know is less than accurate.
It doesn’t make any sense to spend energy getting angry about things we have no control over. Getting angry doesn’t make change, it just makes you feel terrible. These days when I notice myself getting frustrated with someone or something I instead try to answer the follow questions:
Is this an expectation thing? Unsurprisingly it almost always is. By asking the question, I automatically detach myself from the situation, and in detaching the frustration feeling diminishes tenfold.
Is it a worldview thing? Is this an instance where my worldview does not match the actual world? Often I can’t tell for sure right away, but it does get me questioning what I believe, which is good.
Should I inform the person of my frustration? Depends on the person and the situation. How secure do I feel about the issue? If I don’t feel that secure, I tend to think about it some more and keep my mouth shut until then. I don’t know if that’s the best policy, but it does keep me from burning bridges. Is the issue causing me to develop contempt? If it is, I tend to confront saying something along the lines of “this issue has been really bothering me and I don’t want the situation to devolve into something worse.” This tactic has worked well so far I suspect because people tend to appreciate you doing things to keep your friendship working. It also helps to follow up by asking them how they feel about the situation. 
Asking myself these questions has done wonders for helping me get over my passive aggressive tendencies. I’ve developed a hell of a lot more compassion and my friendships are stronger for it.
Is it scary to confront someone? Yeah it is, and I still have a long way to go toward developing my character and courage to do it effectively, but when I have confronted some and it’s worked, it’s worked really really well.
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Date Posted: December 7th, 2009
Continuing from Friday’s Post….
9 ) Sometimes People Need To Be Shut Up
No one likes sitting at a 3 hour meeting where the main topic ends up being “whether or not we should require everyone to wear nametags”. Also no one likes being at a meeting where one or two people have the floor and 98% of what they say is meaningless.
On the other hand, a meeting that moves from one topic to another in which everyone has a chance to speak, but not too much time, is great. Everyone feels productive. No one feels that someone’s monopolizing the floor. We want this kind of meeting but most meetings I’ve been to (and unfortunately quite a few I’ve presided over) have been like the first type.
The main reason why my meetings tended to cater to the longwinded was that I’ve had the belief that interrupting someone is the GREATEST SIN EVAR. This is bad and makes all of the succinct people irritated. If this is a problem for you, here are a few simple solutions (some of which I’ve even tried!).
- Send out an agenda ahead of time and ask the longwinded people to send you a summary of their thoughts before the meeting.
- Limit the responses of everyone. Use a timer. This is kind of harsh for the 98% of people at your meetings who don’t have this problem, though.
- When you’re notice someone’s taking a while to get to the point, interrupt and ask them to get to the point, or interrupt and see if you can sum up for them. Ask if your summary is accurate in their eyes. The glory of this kind of interruption is that you aren’t really cutting them off. They still get to have their say, and even more than that they know they’ve been understood.
10 ) Calmness Trumps Defensiveness Every Time
If you get emotional at your meeting, you lose. If you freak out and have a tantrum… you lose. Calmness about your rightness is important. People will respect you more.
11 ) Sometimes People Just Want To Be Told What To Do
Compulsory democracy isn’t necessarily a good thing. The pace of choir practice is a lot slower when I try to get the choir to lead themselves. Not everyone has the time or inclination to spend time pondering how to sing the music or how to pronounce the lyrics. Heck, a lot of the time I don’t really want to put in the extra time/effort either. 
Encourage people to be proactive, but don’t force it. Don’t worry too much about being too totalitarianism. If you take it too far, people will let you know and forgive you for it if you fix it.
12 ) Fully Think Through Your Proposals
Going back to that major proposal I passed for Swing Ann Arbor, the fact that I thought everything through helped a lot with getting people on board. People trusted that it would succeed since I’d thought about just about everything.
Another thing I wanted to do was to change the tone of Swing Ann Arbor. I started going swing dancing in Ann Arbor, it was right after I got back from Austin. The Austin swing is (or at least was… I haven’t been there in years) incredibly friendly. I made lots of friends easily and was remembered by a few of the good dancers. It was a great experience. When I got to Ann Arbor, things felt different… and not in a good way. After months of going regularly people I danced with every week still didn’t remember my name… yeah… it just wasn’t that fun. As president I wanted to fix that.
Few people on the board agreed with me that there was a problem, though… and in my mind they were part of the problem. I had no idea how to convince them there was a problem, nor did I have any proposals for how to systematically fix it either. Also, any ideas I did have required more time than I was willing to give. Unsurprisingly, between my trying to cut corners and my inexperience I damaged some relationships. Alas. The main point here is if you don’t have a lot of clarity on an issue, you should be wary about attempting to deal with a problem directly, especially if you can’t convince people on your team that there’s a problem.
13 ) Pass Proposals That Take Sense for Your Group Where It Is Right Now
The SAA proposal to add more classes was a bit overambitious and didn’t fully address the issues the group was facing. I tried to arrange a track of advanced classes so that intermediate dancers, like myself, would still benefit from going to classes. What we really needed, though, was a strong base of dancers who were confident with the basics first. Unsurprisingly the classes that did that were the most successful. The intermediate / advanced classes… not so much.
14 ) Preparation is Rewarded
The days I’ve fully prepared for choir rehearsal have always been the best rehearsals. I’ve gotten a lot done. The choir’s learned a lot. Honestly, I’m amazed that I don’t prepare regularly given how much better things go when I’m prepared.
15) Preparation is Hard to Do
Preparation is kind of like exercise. While you’re doing it you sometimes feel good, and after you’ve done it you feel excellent. But it’s really hard to get up the willpower to do it in the first lace. Convincing myself to focus and figure out a day or two before rehearsal what I need or want to to do at the next rehearsal is not trivial.
Having compelling goals helps this. (Huh, who’d have though…) Having a lifestyle setup that supports this is also immensely helpful. If you and everyone in your household knows and respects that every Friday after work you spend an hour on preparing for rehearsal, it gets a lot easier to take the time to actually prepare. Funny that.
16 ) Leadership Takes Both More and Less Time Than I thought it did
In certain respects, leadership doesn’t take all that much time. With being SAA president I didn’t have to be at every weekly swing dance. I only had to organize the monthly meetings, preside over said meeting, and make sure all the administrative stuff with being a student group was taken care of. Really it wasn’t that much.
Similarly with choir, I only really need to figure out the day of what we’re going to sing, and then be there every week to facilitate the rehearsal.
MOAS, I have 4 reports a year I have to send in, and then I have to organize the weekly workshop, most of which are recurring ones anyway.
At the same time, if you want the group to flourish you will have an invisible weight on your shoulders all the time. You have to coordinate with your executive board. You have to prepare for choir practice. You have to encourage people to come to the weekly workshops. Writing emails can take a while. Doing publicity can take a while. And these are the kind of activities where it’s hare to measure how long they take. Some don’t actually take that long, but they can feel like they take a long time. Some zap your mental energy. (How do you quantify that drain?) In short, it’s complicated.
Do I think Leadership is Worth it?
Absolutely. When something I’ve worked on turns out well it feels immensely wonderful. Working with other people to create something big and cool is also great. It’s a great way to develop yourself and come face to face with your limitations. You meet a lot of people. You become a better person for it. (Hopefully) Really, I’d recommend leadership to anyone who wants a systematic way to improve themselves and the community around them.
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Career, Character-Development, Detachment, Leadership, Relationships.
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