Express deliveries, on-demand content, instant notifications, artificial intelligence… Our environment is constantly reducing the distance between desire and its satisfaction. However, frustration, far from being a simple inconvenience, also contributes to our psychological construction and our ability to overcome difficulties.
We learned to hardly wait any longer
It now only takes a few seconds to watch a film, obtain information or receive a response. Even our recommendations are anticipated by algorithms.
In the past, you had to wait for a letter, a television show, the opening of a store or an appointment. Today, immediacy has become the norm.
“Yesterday’s exception, immediately obtaining what we want, is gradually becoming today’s norm.observes Christian Richomme, psychoanalyst.
The problem is obviously not progress. Reducing unnecessary waits is a real comfort. But certain human experiences remain impossible to accelerate: grieving, learning, regaining confidence, building a relationship or supporting a child.
This is where frustration comes into play.
Frustrating does not necessarily mean harm
Frustration refers to this situation in which a desire encounters a delay, an obstacle, a refusal or a reality different from that hoped for. It is part of the psychic construction.
Learning to delay satisfaction, tolerate boredom, accept a “no” or persevere despite a difficulty are all experiences that contribute to our ability to adapt.
“By wanting to eliminate all frustration, we risk experiencing the slightest annoyance as something abnormal.“believes Christian Richomme.
Contemporary research studies in particular the links between problematic use of social networks and difficulties in controlling impulses. But they do not allow us to assert that social networks are, on their own, responsible for a general decline in frustration tolerance.
The issue is therefore less about condemning digital tools than about becoming aware of what they can change in our relationship to waiting.
In the couple, the other is not a service on demand
It is perhaps in our intimate relationships that this contradiction appears most clearly.
A disagreement cannot be resolved in a few clicks. Desire fluctuates. The other may need time, not respond immediately or simply not want the same thing as us.
“We have sometimes transferred the standards of our consumption into our relationships: availability, personalization, speed and satisfaction. But the other is not an on-demand service”underlines Christian Richomme.
This obviously does not mean that we should accept a violent or toxic relationship. An annoyance is not violence and an imperfect relationship is not necessarily a bad relationship. Learning to tolerate frustration does not mean learning to accept everything.
For a child, boredom can also be precious
The same question arises in education. Out of a sense of kindness, some parents may be tempted to intervene quickly when a child is bored, fails, or doesn’t get what he or she wants.
However, disappointment, waiting, boredom or effort can allow him to gradually discover that an unpleasant emotion is not necessarily unbearable.
“Educating is not about eliminating all frustrations; it’s teaching the child that he can cross them”summarizes Christian Richomme.
This approach obviously does not consist of leaving a child alone to face their distress. Rather, it aims to give him the opportunity, when possible, to experience a difficulty that he can gradually learn to overcome.
What if we just had to relearn how to wait?
The same phenomenon can concern work, which still imposes deadlines, repetitive tasks, constraints and efforts whose reward is not immediate.
Here again we must distinguish a truly toxic situation from ordinary discomfort. Not all difficulties are dysfunctions.
“We accelerate everything that can be accelerated, then we are surprised that what cannot be accelerated becomes unbearable.observes Christian Richomme.
Our world will likely continue to get faster. But some experiences will remain irreducibly slow: loving, learning, trusting, growing or grieving.
“By wanting to eliminate all the frustrations from our lives, we especially risk losing our ability to get through them.“.
The challenge is therefore perhaps not to return to a world where everything was slower. But to maintain, in a society capable of satisfying us almost instantly, this essential capacity: to accept that certain things take time.