Rejections

I sometimes wonder if there are lot of things that got changed within me in last 6 years. I am saying 6 years because that is when I arrived in States. One of first lessons I learned was change is necessary to survive in the foreign land. If you are not adaptable to change, things can get deeply disturbing and messy in long run.

One of my perennial fears has been the fear of rejection or failures. Not necessary, but it could be failure in exams, at job, rejections in job interview or the social standings. It is true that rejections are difficult to handle, but you should at least face them. Worse the rejections you face, stronger you will become to face next line of failures and rejections.

However, I really doubt if I have come long way to face rejections. On more than 2 occasions I have preached to my closer friends about accepting failures and move on. As they say preaching is easy, doing is difficult, I have never been good at handling rejections. Either I would blame other thing or people by finding scapegoat in them or would easily give in. Rejections are hard, especially when you work hard and you still fail to achieve your goals. However, you get what you deserve. If you get rejected, suck it up and accept that there was someone better than yourself or you simply did not meet the bar.

Michael Chang deserved to win more grand slams, Andy Roddick deserved to win 2009 Wimbledon final, Leonardo DiCaprio deserved to win Oscar long time back and South Africa deserved to reach to the final of 1999 World Cup and Semi-final of 2003 world cup. Given these unfortunate misses, my imminent rejection does not look so bad. All these people were at the top in their respective fields and so close to goals, however they just ran into unfortunate circumstances that kept them from achieving what they deserved.

Now I am and I will try to be mentally stronger and face the rejection. The major takeaway would be accept the decision, ask the person who rejected you what might have gone wrong, make a plan for improvement and move on. The rejection becomes somewhat soothing when you sprinkle it with optimism and courage.

On the other hand rejections are good. When an entity rejects you, it is clear that you wouldn't be suitable fit to be with it. It's much better than getting accepted artificially and getting rejected. Think about this, you get accepted when someone if not really sure about that decision and you get a benefit of doubt. After some time you both realize a mistake and then you are let go. Isn't it worse than first time rejection?

I think same goes for real life rejections. I accept that rejections are bad. But as an adult, we got to find the silver lining among terrible things. That is being mature, that is being getting ready for next challenge life throws at you.