By Carlo Cuesta
Life in Minneapolis/St. Paul has been turbulent in this dawn of a new year. But we have been deeply inspired by our community’s response to recent traumatic events. At a time when things are so terribly wrong, when you’d expect people to feel paralyzed with fear and frustration, our neighbors instead are taking strategic, innovative action.
This reaction has gotten me thinking about how we respond to frustration in our everyday lives—the ways we react when things are off kilter and just plain wrong. And how we might take a cue from our fellow Minnesotans.
It often starts with griping. Griping is human. It’s often the first signal that something isn’t right. Naming frustration helps us recognize what our bodies and minds are holding, and—at its best—creates space for acceptance. From there, understanding can emerge. And with understanding, agency.
But there’s a difference between acknowledging frustration and letting it take up residence.
When griping embeds itself into the culture of a team, it becomes something else entirely. The energy of the group turns inward, looping on what’s wrong rather than orienting toward what’s possible. Psychological safety erodes, not because people are speaking up, but because nothing new can enter the room.
We call this screaming into the abyss.
The phrase isn’t meant to trivialize something serious. It’s meant to name the cost. Screaming into the abyss is an understandable response to frustration or fear, but it consumes enormous energy, individual and collective, that you won’t get back. And this isn’t about dismissing real harm, misalignment, or the very real ways people and systems can diminish good work. The feelings and situations are real.
What often follows, though, is a familiar reflex: If only they would change. So we strategize. We persuade. We incentivize. We invest more and more effort trying to move others. And without realizing it, we reinforce the very cycle that’s draining us.
The most effective way forward isn’t to push harder on what’s outside your control. It’s to rebuild confidence where you still have agency: within yourself and within your team. This is what we’re seeing our community do. They’re identifying where they still have agency and finding ways to take control on their own.
When we are at our best, this is where we begin. First, we name what’s true: the passion that once fueled the work has been depleted. Exhaustion has set in. The system is low on oxygen. So we deliberately bring oxygen back into the room—into meetings, into one-on-one conversations—by shifting attention to strengths and progress already made. Not over years. Just the last 90 days.
What moved? What worked, even partially? What did we learn?
From there, we ask a grounding question: What is the next step that is 100% within our control?
That step becomes the focus. We organize around it. We act on it. And as we do, we continue to name existing and emerging strengths—not as praise, but as evidence of capacity.
Every three months, we pause. We reflect on progress. We notice what has changed. And we begin the cycle again. Over time, the pattern of screaming into the abyss is disrupted. Confidence returns. Not because the abyss disappeared—but because you stopped giving it all your energy. There will always be fear and frustration. How we react to it is what defines us.