Why are we so afraid of being uncomfortable? Math, Week 1

What did I learn?

It was interesting this week observing 5th grade students' work on fairly complex geometry problems. Students started out working on their own, and then moved into working in groups helping one another. They were given a few clues (degrees of a few angles of a polygon).  They had to draw the shape of the polygon based upon the clues and figuring out the missing angles. The degrees would end up equaling 360. Students who were confident at math finished problems quickly, so quickly in fact that there was no time for frustration. Students, who had to work a little harder with concepts, were frustrated within about 30 seconds and immediately asked for help or said "I don't get it." This was interesting since we discussed in class how people in Japan and other Asian countries work until they figure something out whereas people in the U.S. give up more quickly (in general). It was interesting to see this playing out in a classroom right after it was discussed.  The strong folks with math get stronger and the weaker ones quickly become more discouraged perpetuating the idea that there are people who are good at math and those who are not. I found this on the crossing the river problem. I wanted to come to an answer quickly, so I did. It was wrong.
I went back to the math problems after some time with my patience reestablished and worked them further. The experience was entirely different.

What do I have questions about? Why is it in our culture that sticking with it is so hard? My theory is that we find being uncomfortable to be intolerable rather than a necessary step in achieving the next stage.