Ding!
Back in business school, getting rejected by a firm is endearingly termed as a “ding.” I assume the term was inspired by the sound that elevators make just before it is closing and giving you one hell of a ride back to the lobby of the office building. A ding is when financial institutions or prominent business schools don't deem you worthy enough to hobnob with their crowd — regardless of the fact that you have worked the hardest in your life to get their approval, you're still not good enough.
I've always regarded rejection as the supreme anti-christ — more than jealousy, more than backstabbing and more than unfair criticism. It's hard not to take rejection personally, no matter how many fortune cookies and proverbs out there dictate the opposite. Sure, we've heard it all, haven't we? We're meant for bigger and better things… we just have to wait a little while longer. It just wasn't meant to be. Truly, it is most probably true. However, it's charm and magic doesn't exactly work at its peak when someone has just felt like he was kicked and battered whilst he was crouching on the floor — stark naked.
Rejection comes in many forms. The worst one is the personal kind. Yay or nay?
Pick your biggest insecurity in life and imagine the person that you admire the most in the whole wide world pouncing on that repeatedly until it starts bleeding rocks — and then saying you're not good enough. Funny enough, the words “to hell with you” just couldn't come out of your mouth fast enough.
Getting rejected is only but a natural process of finding one's self. How else will the universe let us filter out those bad decisions from the good ones? And how else will we learn that we can't all get what we want? And most importantly, without rejection, how do we expect to improve ourselves as people?
Rejection, among many other things, are part of life's great teachers. Funny enough, it's when you're given the test first before you learn the lesson. I reckon somewhat that many risks are left not taken because of the very fear of rejection. That and disappointment. Perhaps we fear rejection not because we fear rejection itself, but because we fear the consequences of that rejection. After all, rejection more often that not is followed by an episode of humility.
Though resilience and adversity are important elements to possess when dealing with disappointments and rejections, it is perfectly okay to wallow in self-pity for a bit — to permit time to lick your wounds. That extra tub of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream is calling out your name. Go ahead and indulge. Vodka martini? Yes, please! Retail therapy? I'm so there! It's okay to nourish your soul after allowing someone to blow your ego to bits. You will need it all back when you embark on your next endeavor.
Maybe rejection is the universe's way to steer us towards a greater path. Or perhaps, it is a way for us to learn to broaden our horizons, to open our minds further and to up the antes of our risks. Or maybe even serve as eye-openers. Aren't some of us too stubborn to notice what surrounds us until it hits us squarely in the middle of our eyes? Well, that's the universe at work. It hurts when it hits us, but it's all for the greater good.
Didn't Louis Neverson once say: “I think all great innovations are built on rejections?”
Indeed.
Everything happens for a reason — that's what I believe at least.