Frustrated by Your Accomplishments

77% Weekly Newsletter

24Frustrated
Let me start by asking you to consider activities you do better than other people. What do you excel at doing? What are you gifted at, that others aren’t so great at?
A minor listing of some of the things I do really well:

  1.  
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5.  

For example, I am more skilled at the computer than a lot of other people are. And I’m a better cook than my wife Jane is.
(On the other hand – because I feel it’s only fair – Jane is, hands down, a much better cleaner than I am.)
Think about one thing you do really well.
Maybe it’s your sense of direction, your ability to organize, your love of animals. Whatever it is, either mentally or physically, put it in the blank here:
I _______________ better than most people.
(a thing I do well)

—————

Now here’s your assignment: stop expecting other people to _______________ as well as you.

As I’m better on the computer than most people, when I’m watching somebody fiddle with some piece of software or program, it can frustrate me. I know I could work the program much easier and faster. But, that’s not fair to that person if I get impatient, is it? Computer stuff is just one of my talents. I can’t really expect people to do this thing as well as I do.
When I watch Jane cook in our kitchen, I might be tempted to get frustrated and say, “Just let me do it, it’ll be a lot easier.” Similarly, I am certain that her watching me clean frustrates her.
You can’t have it both ways. If you acknowledge you _______________ better than other people, – then you need to be OK with them not doing it as well as you do.
You need to learn to, meditate on, and figure out a way through the frustration.
Spiritual-religious advice:
Be patient in your talents.
With love,
i best

Has anyone seen my keys?!

Jane and the kids misplace keys. Not me. I don’t. I always return my key to the keyrack. That’s where they go. When the key isn’t on the hook, which happens from time to time, I find it on some surface in the house. Usually, the kitchen table. Then, without fanfare, I pick it up, hang it up, and restrain

Read More »

Rabbi Brian Doesn’t Understand

In the 18th century, in Hannipol, a small district of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, in present-day western Ukraine, there was a rabbi known as Reb Zusya. Zusya, a pious man, taught about humility and had a strange habit of referring to himself in the third person. Instead of saying, “I am hungry,” or “I don’t understand,” he would say, “Zusya is hungry,”

Read More »

Travesty

I rewind the etymology podcast 15 seconds because I missed the details about the origin of the word travesty. I want to listen again—more closely—so I learn it, so I can recall it later in conversation… because if I tell you how travesty—from “traverse” and “clothing”—came to mean “shockingly unfair,” you’ll think I’m smart. Lost in that thought, I suddenly

Read More »
77% Weekly Newsletter
77% Weekly Newsletter