Rejection Is Your Friend

Almost everything worth doing involves an element of fear. Writing things on the internet, for example, still makes me a little nervous. So do speaking up at work, asking for a raise, expressing an unpopular opinion and needles.

I think I will never get over that last one but getting a tetanus shot is worth it. That stuff kills people.

But there is a greater evil out there that scares most of us:

Rejection.

It’s a sucker. Something about rejection scares the heck out of us. It’s like being four years old and momma is angry and you worry whether she will ever forgive you and the half-hour it takes for her to tell you it’s all good again seems like an eternity. That feeling shook us to the core then and it still does that now.

Here is the thing, though. Most of the time, rejection doesn’t matter. If someone does not like what you do or says “no” to you, nothing changes. You are not worse off than before. Your life is still the same.

Often, it is even a little richer than before. There is a piece of art you made that you didn’t have before. There’s one more piece of information, a little bit more clarity, or one less road to worry about pursuing.

Rejection helps us figure out what doesn’t work. That’s incredibly valuable because at least we don’t have to bother with that thing anymore. Come to think of it, I’d like to get rejected as soon as possible. At least then I can go do something else.

See? Things are not as bad as all that.