frustration

"Sometimes in life you meet people that inspire you, sometimes you meet someone you want to inspire, and sometime you meet people that make you want to bleepin stab yourself."

-Jamie Oliver

I was watching the ABC show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" a few nights ago, and was struck by this quote. Jamie Oliver, who is a Chef from England and is trying to change the awful eating habits of Americans in our fast-food, our schools and our homes spoke it about one of the fast-food restaurant owners he was interacting with. In the episode, he was trying to figure out how to introduce healthy choices to a man who thought that customers did not need or have any interest in healthy foods or knowing what was in their food. He even said at one point that his customers didn't care about the quality of what they eat, just the quantity. That alone was sad to hear.

But the quote was golden-amidst the frustration of running into a stubborn man and many stubborn people around him, he spoke to the honest feelings in his heart. He was angry and he was real, and his emotions were raw and out there. They were the words of a passionate man with a passion he could not get others to understand and subscribe to.

Sometimes, I feel the same way as him. There are people that are influences or ones I would like to influence, and then there are the ones that make me frustrated to no ends. They may not make me feel like stabbing anyone, but frustration with others is there-it has been there since the fall of man and will always be a source of difficulty.

As the show goes on, Jamie offers a way for the owner to keep selling his high calorie food while still allowing him to offer his healthy alternatives. He humbles himself to not challenge the owner, but instead to work with him and not against him to hopefully get his passion out there and to as many people as possible.

When we don't work well together, I need to remember that disharmony dominates and unfortunately will influence that interaction. My points have been remembering to be humble, to see Jesus in the face of all the people around me and to pick my battles. That seems to be the key in my life-working hand in hand with the difficult people I run into, not trying to push against but to flow with them whenever I can. When life hands me a frustration-focused relationship, I have been trying harder to get to know that person's story, and they become more full, more 3-dimensional and easier to understand and (hopefully) eventually easier to work with.