Anger and Frustration

A father once wanted to illustrate

to his son the difference between

“ frustration” and “anger”.

To illustrate the point he looked

up the telephone number of a

pompous chap he knew, and

dialled the number. When the call

was answered the father asked “Is

Fred there?”

“There’s no Fred here”, came the

terse reply. The father dialled the

same number again. “Is Fred

there?” “No!” roared the man,

“Now why don’t you get the

right number before you dial at

this time of night?”.

“Now that,” said the father when

he put down the phone. “is simply

annoyance. We will wait a few

minutes and then try again”.

After a decent interval the father

dialled the same number again

and asked “Is Fred there?” This

time the other man screamed

back “What’s the matter with you

– are you crazy? I told you to look

up the number and stop bothering

me!” “Now that was anger”, said

the father. “Now I will show you

the difference between anger and

 frustration”.

After 15 minutes or so the father

dialled the same number for the

fourth time and when the same

man answered again, the father

said almost cheerily – “Hello,

this is Fred. Have there been any

messages for me in the last half

hour or so?!”