What is frustration

Frustration - keep trying to solve a puzzle with the pieces at hand, even if you've already established that some critical pieces are missing.

A couple of real world scenarios:

• You talk to someone, they say something you disagree with, you reply. Instead of tackling your response, they say the same thing. You generate another "I'm not with you on that one" reply, and they say the same thing louder. In a few iterations shouting escalates the dialogue to a conflict.
• You work on an assignment, you realize that you need more time than you were given, that the task was not correctly described, or that you cannot proceed unless a colleague provides something you need. If you keep trying to complete the project in spite of the awareness that you cannot make it, you will feel frustrated and incompetent.

All these examples are different instances of the "fitting a square peg into a round hole" problem. The moment you realize that the task cannot be completed unless new pieces are added, stop and find those pieces. If you choose to play with the ones you already have, your only achievement will be yet another way to prove that "it cannot be done".