Overcoming frustration and conflicts
Life is too inestimable and precious that antipathetic emotions like resentment and disputes should become roadblocks or impediments which subsume the thought process, writes RAVI VALLURI
Two young girls from an estimable school were bosom buddies, veritable alter egos of one another. They were to appear for the class 12th examination. Renu was exceptionally gifted and her mind was filled with luminosity. She was to crack the examination triumphantly and emerge number one in the school. Needless to say she was ecstatic and euphoric.
Renu could only commiserate with the pea in the pod Divya, as the latter’s performance was below par. Divya’s mind was inundated with nugatory thoughts and she became covetous of her friend. Meanwhile, Jeevan another school mate barely scraped through the examination. He was shattered with the outcome and feared sharing the result with his parents, relatives and friends.
The performance and results engineered joy, sorrow, hope, love, palpable excitement, anger and even hatred and jealousy among the students. Fertile stripling minds became febrile with a rainbow of emotions. They were submerged with feelings, emotions and variegated moods.
Life is priceless
Human life is too inestimable and precious that antipathetic emotions like frustration and conflicts should become roadblocks or impediments which subsume the thought process. These unwelcome triggers willy-nilly act as an encumbrance or a facer restricting an individual from scaling the summit. When demonic and Sisyphean thoughts mushroom in the mind, our prana levels plummet and shrink. In such a situation the fecundity and efficiency of an individual plunges like a downward sloping curve.
Frustration
Frustration is a mental state of vexation, a stifling feeling which enervates the individual. This invariably occurs when an anticipated desirable objective or goal is not accomplished. In such a situation the human mind becomes demotivated. Frustration triggers in abnormal behavioural and emotional reactions. These can vary from detritus, chaff, aggressive tendencies, and mental fixation, voluntary or involuntary attempt to discard the gauntlet, escapism, avoidance of quotidian responsibility, plain crying, worthlessness, and feeling of rejection, addiction to alcohol, excessive smoking, and substance abuse and at the extreme end of the spectrum can even terminate in suicidal tendencies.
The Dollard- Miller Hypothesis
Pre-eminent psychologists like Dollard and Miller have argued that frustration engineers aggression. And aggression acts a blocking agent towards material or spiritual pursuits. These are normally due to personal (within) and environmental (without) constraints.
An antigen flowchart can be constructed to analyse contributory factors for frustration to arise in the human mind and body. The genesis lies in a simple need, which mutates into a drive. Drive results in arousal of feelings and ardour and fieriness. This metamorphoses into target behaviour and accomplishment of the objective. Miscarriage of the process produces conflicting situations, which ultimately result in frustration and aggression.
Conflicting situations or frustration triggers
Conflicts can be termed as feuds or schisms. These occur among individuals, sparring factions or organisations. The entity could be a political body, a corporate organisation or even philanthropic agencies. The inception or propagation of conflicts rests on balancing contradictory needs, desires, motives, perquisites and demands of an individual or an entity. It is normally opined that there are three kinds of conflicting situations which humans have to invariably grapple with under.
Broadly speaking these are approach-approach conflicting locus, avoidance- avoidance conflicting ballgame and finally approach avoidance conflict ion stitch.
The genesis of approach- approach disputation emerges from choosing between two advantageous and expedient paradigms. The formation of avoidance-avoidance conflicting hostility lies in the choice between to antipathetic alternatives. These are primarily undesirable surrogates. A classic example of such a misadventure is when an individual is faced with a bizarre dilemma to either allow decay of his teeth or to be treated by a dentist. It would be noteworthy to mention whether a well propertied and opulent individual would choose starvation over eating at an unclean roadside dhaba.
Master your mind
The human mind is to be trained and motivated to grapple with all possible situations. A stock individual, a corporate honcho or a savant all have to plan and organise their behavioural patterns to hit the bulls eye. This requires enormous practice and tapasya.
Further it is pre-eminent to rank the objectives or prioritise the targets and goals. There are eminent classical vocalists who practice for hours and years together prior to their first public performance.
They are not in any tearing hurry.
The next step in motivating the mind is to embark upon baby steps, establish short-term goals and targets (say a few days, weeks, a month or perhaps a couple of years) to master the craft.
Upon completion of a few goals, the human mind tends to become enervated. It would be prodigious to stroke oneself with petty rewards; a movie show, a few small gifts or even a short vacation perhaps. This uplift the mood of the individual and the mind is electrified and galvanised to perform.
On each occasion, when an objective is accomplished, or a target achieved it is a moment of chutzpah. In case the targets appear exigent and gruelling, it would be sanguine to break them into smaller ones and approach them scientifically. It would be always bankable and salutary for the mind to visualise or imagine the outcomes of all the hard work an individual put into achieve the desired goals. A human or a corporate entity should necessarily undertake a SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to set the targets and prepare the mind and self to achieve them. This scientific approach and preparation would indisputably mitigate frustrations and conflicts.