Rejection is an everyday part of our lives and it sucks. We as humans are raised to get used to disappointment and many of our actions are determined by our levels of the fear of being rejected. And the reason this sucks is because our species depends on us being social and interacting with each other regardless of how anti social some of us are. As an introvert I can tell you that being around people tires me out, I enjoy being with them and doing activities together but I need my isolation every now and then, I think a lot of you can agree on that. Anyway, despite how smoothly you think your life is going, you're bound to run into rejection the moment you set foot outside of your home, which luckily, I don't do very often.
Me: Excuse me, sorry, hi, do you happen to sell this in green?
Store employee: All available colours are already on the shelf.
Me: I'm going to have Vanilla and strawberry flavoured ice cream.
Waiter:O sorry we don't have any more take away cups.
Me: OK, can I pay with my debit card?
Waiter: O sorry, we only take cash.
Me: wow, I really liked the way you served me, here's twenty dollars for you.
Waiter: Sorry sir, we don't accept tips.
You extend your hand and the person ignores it.
You come out early to catch the bus, as you approach the bus stop, you see the bus leaving without you.
When you say the word rejection, alot of people have the idea of romantic rejection in mind. You're in a classroom, office or wherever and you find yourself infatuated with a colleague; he/she is cute, with a charming smile, you liked the way he/ she said your name correctly, a task others before her may have had trouble with, whatever the attraction may be. How do you go about derailing your life and potentially hers in order to build a new track with her? It's easy, just go for it, just talk to them, have a conversation, be genuine. If they're not interested, that's fine, it doesn't change who you are at all, nor does it diminish your value as a person. Don't depend on others for self validation, just come out of it knowing the next time you're interested in someone, it can't be as difficult as the first time.
A challenge that people who possess one try to convince you of how simple it is. I remember passing out hundreds of resume to numerous places for my first solid part time job and just being enveloped in a mixtire of anger and envy and just murmuring "I know I can do your job better than you" to myself whenever I see an incompetent employee under-perfoming their jobs. It wasn't until my uncle hooked me up with an opening at a firm, that i realized, wow, all my efforts proior to this were useless. I got hired and thought to myself how I have been rejected so many times before this.
I don't know how but I ended up representing my school in a public speaking competition back in my high school days. I thought I was underqualified because I was a pretty quiet kid; I didn't have a major stage fright, I was shy but I did have a sense of humor and during that time of the year it was a mandatory assignment to make a speech about literally anything , granted it was appropriate. So I made a speech about cartoon characters and my class enjoyed it, I honestly didn't do too much research on my topic, I just tried to make it funny.
I got voted to represent my class and then I was put up against every other kid representing their respective classes. I was nervous, but did my best and ended being voted to represent my whole school to compete with other schools, I kinda didn't want to, but I got to skip a day at school so I told them I was so in but then I got there, I realized I didn't want to do this after all . Every other contestant had like a valedictorian level of speech and I was there talking about superman and on top of that the audience was mostly composed of adults and my speech was designed for kids, so a lot of my jokes weren't received very well and that took a toll on me. The feeling of trying to be funny and no none laughing is a great fear of mine. I felt extremely rejected but I still felt proud afterwards .
As a quiet introverted kid who till today still has trouble making eye contact when talking to people, I felt a big development with myself from that experience . I think what it comes down to is how a lot of us are still trying to figure out where we fit in but we belong in this world full of different people and different ideologies, we desire to be with people who can agree with our thoughts, people who can accept us regardless of our personalities and it's not an easy task, everyday we face judgements from those around us, and it's a constant challenge of seeking acceptance but still maintaining a sense of dignity.
I face that challenge anytime I make a post for all of you to read, my job literally depends on you guys not rejecting me, I can't please all of you, I know that and needed to accept that fact to survive here, but I'm just happy to be able to make post that most of you find interesting , but I think that's the point; nothing comes easy, even when you work hard to achieve what you desire, you're not always rewarded accordingly. Get used to disappointment but don't yield to it, by that I don't mean trying to pursue your colleague even after he/she told you they're in a serious relationship. Take the rejection, all forms of it, not as a failure, but as an experience to prepare you for the next one, which, who knows might not end up being another rejection.
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