How Frustration Can Be Satisfying
A lot of people want to be naturals at whatever it is they do. Whether it be naturally smart, naturally talented at a sport or a specific skill or naturally beautiful/good looking, some things just come easy to certain people. We idolize them, put them on a pedestal and admire their “gifts”.
As a middle school math teacher, it’s easy to fixate on the students who are just gifted in math. Sometimes we say these kids “just have a math brain” and they “just get it”. It’s always great to work with a student like that because they will blow you away with how well they do in your class and how quickly the pick up the new information.
Lately, our school has made a push into focusing on the students who aren’t gifted or naturally talented in school but the ones who put in the necessary effort to become outstanding students. Their tireless work ethic, their ability to push through frustrating problems or concepts and the feeling that overcomes them when they finally “get it” is a thing of beauty.
Programming — at least for me — has not been something I’ve naturally picked up and understood. It’s taken me a lot of time and effort to understand what I do today and that’s not nearly as much as I would want or need to know. There have been countless moments of frustration; more than I care to share or even think about. There have been instances where I’ve gotten stuck with something, became so frustrated with it that I had to walk away from it and come back to it at a [sometimes much] later date.
There have been multiple times where I’ve gone a month or so without doing any programming, but when I came back to work on one of my side projects after a hiatus, the problem that had plagued me before was still waiting for me. The returns I made to programming gave me time away from the frustration, time to learn a little more and the ability to think reasonably about the problem at hand rather than to angrily pound away aimlessly at it.
With a new sense of reasoning and new understanding of the concept needed to complete the task at hand, I have been able to clear most all the hurdles that have stood in my way thus far. That frustration that I had felt for hours, days or even months is now gone. Feeling satisfied — at times even jubilant — has instantly replaced that frustration and gives me a sense of accomplishment like no other.
This was something that I’m learning on my own, something I’m not naturally talented at, and to be able to accomplish specific tasks makes me feel so good about myself that it reassures me that this is something that I not only enjoy to do, but that I love to do! I’m not a guy that shows a ton of emotion, but for me to be sitting in a house alone, on a computer teaching myself programming and to let out an audible “YES!” or even a “F*$& YEAH!” because I’ve solved one of my problems speaks volumes to me.
Before making the decision that this was what I wanted to do for a career, at times my programming frustrations could be a deterrent for my hobby. I would eventually come back to it and figure it out, developing that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction over time. But now that programming is no longer a hobby but a future career for me, I have no choice but to use the frustration I have as an incentive to continue. I know the rush of emotion and jubilation that will come if I keep working at it and that’s a feeling that everyone should experience in one way or the other.
