I can't even begin to count the times I've shuffled the deck and asked a question either for myself or on behalf of someone else, and the answer I received was just completely unhelpful. Maybe the spread I selected wasn't the best for this question. Maybe I need to rephrase the question slightly. Same answer over and over again. Each time more frustrating than the last.But why is this frustrating? What makes the answer so 'unhelpful'?Most of the time answers seem unhelpful when the immediate response to the result of the reading is, "No duh. I knew that. Tell me something I didn't know." I'm particularly frustrated when I'm reading for another person and I get such an answer. I can feel the querent's frustration rising as I relay to them some super basic advice that would most certainly solve their situation or answer their question. Obviously if they are consulting a tarot reader, they need something beyond the obvious, right?After completing one of these frustrating readings a few weeks ago, I decided I needed to contemplate what makes these over simplified answers so frustrating. I mulled over what the querent had asked and what the cards had said. I racked my brain for solutions their problem, and every time I came back to exactly what the cards had said. There was no other answer. What makes readings like this so frustrating is that we're turning to the tarot cards in the hopes that they'll affirm that the reason things that won't change have nothing to do with us. We want confirmation that some outer force is holding us in place and that it has nothing to do with some action (or lack thereof) taken on our part.Tarot readings don't do that. They force you to confront issues with not only the world around you, but within yourself as well. If you're not willing to take the first step, then a reading will never give you more than the first few actions you need to take. If you can't make those first steps, the next ten steps won't do you any good to know anyway.Ultimately the answer to any frustrating reading is to ask ourselves, "Why does this answer frustrate me?" It could be that it is simple and "obvious" advice that we've been ignoring. Perhaps it tells us to do something we'd already thought of, but simply didn't want to do out of pride. Or perhaps, we have to accept responsibility for the part we've played in creating the situation we're facing. The reading itself is not what has frustrated us, but our own inability to confront the issue in front of us. It' time to be honest with ourselves in order to move forward.