This Is Why Rejection Is Actually A Good Thing For Writers
One thing that is constant in my life is rejection. This happens frequently. I submit articles to my favorite sites, some are immediately accepted and some are sneezed away in rejected. In fact, rejection is the only constant in my life. No matter what, every week, I will have one mail in my inbox saying, your writing has been rejected. Some sites write with love and explain how I can do better, but most of the sites don’t bother and that is okay. It is okay for them not to bother. They don’t owe anyone a dose of self-esteem.
Yet, this doesn’t just happen in the context of writing. This happens when I seek scholarship opportunities for further education. This happens time and again.
Now what do I do?
Do I sit back and cry about the countless times I have been rejected?
Or do I laugh at my situation?
Do I conclude that indeed, I am not as smart as I initially thought I was or do I hide this side of me?
After all, nobody really goes through my inbox. They may never know how many times I have actually been rejected.
What most people are only bothered about is, if I have been rejected in love.
This is the only question that they ask and I sit back and wonder about this. One can never really be rejected in love. See, if I love someone and I express the same, I have already done my bit. I can make myself available, I can express love to them, and I can send sweet texts, but if they do not want to or feel like reciprocating, they will say no and that is okay.
At least I tried and that is important.
Coming back, the only thing that is constant is rejection. I wonder if rejection has been my long term dating partner. Next time someone will ask me, if I have ever been rejected in love? I’d probably say that I am in fact dating rejection!
I don’t weigh my self-esteem on the acceptance or rejection by a certain other person. Perhaps, I seek out rejection. Perhaps, in my madness I try to outreach. In my madness, I forget about the possible. This reminds me of a famous ted talk on rejection therapy by Jia Jiang on Surprising Lessons from 100 Days of Rejection.
This talk was instrumental in making me feel ‘okay’ with the entire idea of being rejected. I ended up trying to grasp opportunities that I thought I wasn’t good enough for. I ended up not caring another mail in my inbox explaining why I could not get a certain position. I ended up being accepted in places I didn’t know I could. And all this could only happen because of my ease relationship with rejection.
And I realized that nothing exactly is as fragile as ‘acceptance’. Any time the article that received so much love can be turned against me for some controversial and seemingly poorly researched theme.
That can prove as a dark space in my writing career. Any time any acceptance can turn into a rejection if one doesn’t work towards it and what ultimately remains invaluable is ‘rejection’. So, it is only fair to feel comfortable with the possibility of being rejected.
All successful people date rejection because behind every acceptance, there have been countless rejections that troubled them, countless rejections waiting to creep at any opportunity they get.
Every great author has been rejected.
Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen.
Louis L’Amour for Banter.
Dan Brown for The Da Vinci Code.
Dr Seuss for Too different from other juveniles on the market to
warrant its selling.
C.S. Lewis for The Chronicles of Narnia.
L.M. Montgomery for Anne of Green Gables to name a few, were
rejected for their initial works.
J.K. Rowling tops the list by making her rejection vivid in a tweet.
Hence, to put it humbly, if such great thinkers have been rejected, what right do I have to cringe at a few rejections? It’s much fancy and smart to be able to walk with rejection, hand in hand towards a destination we yearn to reach.