From frustration to freedom: How to disentangle yourself (and help others in the process)

“An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.”

~ Lydia M. Child (1802-1880) Writer

Have you ever gotten so mired in frustration that you just can’t seem to move beyond it?

When life brings you down, it’s easy to become excessively focused on all the things that seem to be a source of frustration. And it is all too easy to become completely immersed in the feeling of dissatisfaction itself. When we do, this fixation is like a magnifying glass through which every problem or challenge we have expands to several times its normal size until it all feels too utterly daunting to move at all. And this orientation seems to somehow draw all manner of setbacks and further difficulty. As the old adage goes, “when it rains, it pours.”

It could be that the way we tend to act when we are already feeling beaten contributes to the negative cycle. Or perhaps that when we are so intent on seeing all the things that we feel rotten about that even things that would normally be no big deal suddenly feel incredibly heavy. In any case, we all have days where what’s going wrong seems to take up more of our attention than what’s going right and life just feels like one d@#n thing after another.

At times like these, I’ve found that the best thing you can do is anything that allows you to go beyond yourself to be of service to another human being.
It may seem somewhat naïve and Pollyannaish to presume that forgetting all your troubles to go help someone else would do much, if anything, to change the situation. How could something so simple and totally unrelated to what is going on have any impact when you feel so down and out that you cannot do another thing?

I had a roommate in college who was down in the dumps for a few weeks.
Her usually delightful demeanor had become heavy and a little dark. She was going through one of those slumps we all encounter from time to time. One day when I came home from class, there was a envelope taped onto our door. As I looked around the building we lived in, I noticed similar envelopes hanging on other doors. This one had my name on it, handwritten. I tore it open and found a piece of notebook paper up on which was written one of the most heartfelt notes I had ever read.

It was signed “from someone who appreciates you deeply” and as I read it, I found myself falling into the page while small tears began to collect at the corners of my eyes. The author of the note had recounted things I had done over the last several weeks – many of which I thought were insignificant – that made a difference in that person’s life. There were kind, warm words of praise and gratitude as well as encouragement and inspiration. Whoever wrote that note apparently thought I was special and took the time to tell me why in such a way that it profoundly touched me. I looked up and saw someone across the hall reading her note and watched as her face began to light up.

When I opened the door, I found my roommate sitting contentedly writing in her journal and sipping a cup of tea. She looked up and smiled for what seemed the first time in weeks.

“Did you get one of these notes?’ I asked her.

 “No,” She responded with a grin.

And then it hit me. She was the one who wrote the notes. She didn’t admit it at first, but I finally got it out of her.

“What led you to do this?” I asked her. “It must have taken you hours!”

“I was tired of feeling tired and sad and lonely,” she said. I was sick of my    gloomy little world. And I decided that if I couldn’t make it better for myself, maybe I could make it better for someone else.”

She had started with one note. And then she wrote another. And then another. And it felt so good, she said, that she decided she’d just write until she didn’t feel like writing anymore.

That was over twenty years ago. And it still inspires me.

She taught me more through her actions that I would have learned by reading ten books that day. I don’t think she intended it at the time, or even realized it until she started writing her notes, but the gift she gave to everyone in that building ended up being something that benefitted her just as much as everyone else. And my guess is that it is still benefitting her and everyone else – because I know it’s still meaningful and significant to me.

Gandhi said “You must be the change you want to see in
the world”. Richard Bach wrote “We teach what we most need to learn.” And Maya Angelou tells us, “I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” Perhaps this is one of the true gifts in giving – that when we get outside of ourselves to touch another human being, it has a way of bringing us gently back to ourselves so that we too receive the gift. And it holds true even when we think we have nothing left to give.

When our egos get the best of us and we think nothing will ever go the way we want it to, we can transcend a state of wanting by moving into a state of giving. 

Think of something you want right now, in this moment. What is it that “something” will give you? Most likely it is a feeling – perhaps a feeling of contentment, satisfaction, prosperity, abundance, or joy. Now, see if there is something you can do for another person to help them experience those things. Often when we give to others, we find we already had that which we were seeking. We realize the thing we thought we needed is a means to an end that we have
already arrived at. And perhaps this, in and of itself is the true gift of giving – and the magic elixir that transforms frustration to freedom.