How often do you get frustrated in an average day? Have you ever wondered what makes you frustrated? Not in specific situations, but the mechanics behind going from, is this idiot about to do idiotic things, and, oh my god what an idiot.

I studied psychology at university, which may sound impressive if not for the details left unshared. It was part of an Arts degree and I didn’t continue my psych studies any further. It gave me a dangerous level of knowledge and disproportionate confidence – like a young bartender with big security guards – when dissecting the human condition. And yet, here we go.

One day, I noticed I would often get frustrated by little things – not small objects, I should say insignificant things. I’d never get throw-a-rock-at-a-pigeon frustrated, more mumble-look-at-this-idiot-to-myself frustrated. But I wanted to move beyond it. I’m not an angry person. On a scale of bloody rage to monk, I’d say I’m on the fiery side although not by much. My mind flew thirty years into the future and I didn’t like the grumpy, frowny old man squinting back at me telling me to get off our lawn. 

I wanted to be the kind of person who approaches potentially frustrating situations with a whimsical curiosity. So, in an attempt to better understand my relationship with frustration and try to uncover the commonality between the inciting events, I kept a record of every time something frustrated me. The experiment lasted one day and I highly recommend it. Here’s an abridged sample of the list:

Monday 17th

8:11am – MAMIL (middle aged man in lycra) passed way too close while cycling to work with no warning. First the housing market, now this.

8:47am – Person stepped out of a shop into foot traffic without watching. If I was as oblivious to others as she was, I would’ve flattened her.

8:55am – Ordered a soy latte instead of a long black and it wasn’t up to my exacting coffee standards – god damn it.

11:03am – Another meeting that should’ve been an email somehow ran an hour over time.

12:34pm – Crossing street and car drove too close for comfort – maniac.

1:26pm – Trying to drive and pedestrian’s taking forever to cross – idiot.

2:39pm – Dickhead in front of me at cafe ordered while still on the phone – rude.

2:42pm – Long black was bitter, too hot and made me jittery instead of focused.

It was an embarrassing exercise that revealed two things about myself. First, I seemed to spend a lot of time frustrated. Second, I spent that time frustrated at utterly trivial things. My Dad likes to say, “In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter”. Usually after sharing the news that someone has died who he knew from where we grew up. Someone I can’t remember. His point being that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff because in the context of human existence, even in the timeline from our births to our deaths, precious few things truly matter and then we all die. And then someone you saw a fair bit of decades ago will tell one of their children about your death and they won’t remember a thing about you. RIP.

Once I saw the sparkling insignificance of my day’s worth of frustrations, I was embarrassed. How absurd to let these things rock my emotions. The critical insight was seeing how all of these incidents offended my expectations of what was supposed to happen. And when they didn’t go the way I expected, I became frustrated. Who steps out into foot traffic without looking if they’re going to walk into someone? What if everyone on the planet acted like that? What then? Huh? It’d be total chaos. But that hypothetical doesn’t matter because I can only control my own actions. So I look both ways before stepping out of shops. I pledged to divert my energy from holding onto these expectations and put it towards controlling my response to these situations.

It was surprisingly easy to change my behaviour after that. I mean not totally, I still get frustrated. Sometimes a lot. But my reaction is often much more subdued and inline with the offence. I am becoming better and quicker at picking up bubbling frustration. Now, I’m better able to short-circuit the frustration in its infancy before it has time to start kicking and screaming. I start with my expectation, check if it’s fair, then ask whether the other person acted with malice, or just a lack of empathy. Usually, it’s people being unthinking. And I have to take consolation from knowing I was probably right and that it doesn’t really matter either way. It’s not a foolproof system and sometimes I just feel like being frustrated at the world and using tiny things as justification, but I’ll keep trying to inch closer to that elusive monk.

Last year, I was driving home with my wife. We live in a small coastal town that doubles as one of Australia’s most popular tourist destinations – Byron Bay. It was a Sunday, I was waiting for a call from a friend’s mum to organise a catch up, and everyone had forgotten how to drive. She was the kind of mum who always let us have parties at her house in high school. She was very fashion forward and enjoyed wearing flowing dresses and lots of jewellery paired with bright lippy. She gives the best hugs too. She pushes you away as firmly as she pulls you in, ‘How are you darling? How’s Jessie?’ she asks with genuine interest, ‘Oh that’s great, darling’.

It wasn’t that the traffic was bad, but the quality of drivers that Sunday was pushing me away from the Monk. The speed limit out of town is 50km/h and when you’re busting for a piss, you can give that a nudge. But my bladder had to wait. We got caught behind some lunatic ambling along gently feeling out either side of the lane at a lethargic 30km/h. I understand crawling along if you’re gawking at the ocean or some tangled collision, but this was an ungodly pace for no apparent reason. When I’m in the orbit of an apparently unthinking road user (speeding, slowing, swerving, not indicating, clearly on their phone – whatever it may be), I find an irrepressible urge to see their face. I guess I’m chasing the feeling when someone keeps talking during a movie, and you turn around and they look exactly like the kind of person who talks in a movie.

The driver’s window was down, and part of the large red sunhat obscuring the rear-view mirror and more than half the windscreen was poking out and flapping in the wind. So I didn’t have many details to extrapolate into a likely mugshot. The turn-off to Bangalow approached and I prayed to the ancient Roman Sunday traffic gods, assuming there was one, or one whose jurisdiction would cover such matters – maybe Spartacus? Wait, isn’t sloth a sin? The car slowed down to a crawl, a bush turkey effortlessly ambled past us, it was too much – they were so slow they were about to rewind time. 

I had let my expectation of what is acceptable and safe conduct on the roads slide far enough. I could feel the emotional prickling of frustration starting to crackle inside me. I gave a gentle, passive-aggressive toot of encouragement hoping it might free up the accelerator, indicator or, praise be Spartacus, both. The indicator winked once and the car jerked to the right to begin contemplating maybe turning before sundown. I had to get a look at this one – for my bladder’s sake if nothing else. Of course it was my friend’s mum. I snapped my head away before she could get a glimpse back. It was the perfect lesson on why getting angry on the road never amounts to anything good. I think we should re-label road rage – it sounds a bit cool. And I think it probably appeals to those who revel in it. What if we call it a tarmac tanty (tantrum) – something that conjures the kind of embarrassment such a juvenile lack of control over your emotions deserves.

‘Was that…?’ My wife asked. 

‘100%,’ I said, already blushing.

‘Do you think she… recognised you?’

‘Nah, I haven’t seen her in forever,’ I said, convincing no one.

We made it home dry, aside from the post caught-out-being-a-frustrated-idiot sweats. I lightened my bladder in place of my conscience and my phone vibrated. 

‘Think I just drove past you – two surfboards on the roof, silver car? Sorry we missed you today, the day got away from us. Hope you’re well. Love to Jessie.’

I don’t think I could stomach a stronger cautionary tale about the embarrassing perils of unchecked frustration. This one still makes me squirm. It was the perfect lesson to drive home the uselessness of frustration. A golden opportunity to action my insights and drop my expectations, and enter the situation with whimsical curiosity. Instead I lapsed, let frustration take the wheel, and it blew up in my stupid face. Well, sort of. After minutes of fretting over how to handle the fall out, which was quite mild in the grand scheme of things, I replied:

‘I thought that was you! Gave you a toot to say hello. Sorry we didn’t catch up. Next time.’