Reject Rejection

It was on the playground at Harrison Elementary School where I first felt the sting of rejection. As I stood in a line at the edge of a dusty softball field, I glanced over at the appointed team captain. “Cindy!” he yelled. Cindy turned around, smiled at me, and gave me the thumbs up sign as she gleefully ran over to her new team. The other team captain glanced over at me and then scanned the bench where two kids sat—Bill and me. “Bill!” the team captain shouted.

Bill slowly pulled himself up off the bench and grabbed his crutches. He hobbled over to where the opposite team stood. Despite a recently broken leg and severe concussion, Bill had been picked over me—a gangly, pale, uncoordinated kid with cat glasses. As I sat on the bench on the edge of that dusty ball field and watched the two team captains flip a coin over who was unlucky enough to have me on their team, I wondered if being chosen last wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

As I quickly evaluated my strengths on the softball field, I came to grips with the fact that just being able to swing the bat at a ball without dropping it really wasn’t a valuable skill in the competitive world of playground sports. Neither was ducking every time someone threw the ball in my direction. I realized that I had just learned a valuable life lesson. My talents obviously lay in a different direction.

When I was eighteen, I declared to my mother, the Pope, and anyone else who would listen that I wanted to become a writer. I wrote poem after poem and article after article for five years, sending them into a variety of publications who promptly sent back letters of rejection. “Thank you for trying,” the editor would reply, or “We know how much this story means to you,” or “Have you ever tried softball?” But this time, I refused to let rejection dictate my destiny. I was never so sure of anything in my life - I loved to write and I knew that if I kept perfecting my craft, I would one day become published.

On my toughest day, I remembered what Sylvester Stallone once said, “I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going rather than retreat.” So I woke up every morning and I wrote. I got going and I didn’t retreat and then one day, after sixty months of rejection (not that I was counting), I opened my mailbox and found the letter that would change my life forever. “We are publishing your essay in the next issue. Please find a payment enclosed. Congratulations!” I think I spooned in my bed with that letter for days afterward.

I recently read an article about Nebraska’s first astronaut Clay Anderson, who recently returned from his second trip to space. Most people don’t know that Clay Anderson, an eternal optimist, applied to be an astronaut fourteen times in a row, receiving a rejection every time. He didn’t know if he could go on, but somehow he dug deep and found the courage to apply once again. He was accepted on the fifteenth try.

Rejection is a difficult hurdle to overcome in life and we all have had to suffer through it at one time or another - whether it was losing your dream job, the love of your life, or a place on the Olympic medal stand. Even though it hurts, I believe that living through rejection is what helps make our spirits strong, vibrant, and compassionate.

I believe French writer Louis Ferdinand Celine said it best when he said, “I think all great innovations are built on rejections.” I hope that you won’t let rejection stop you, but instead, let it motivate you to make positive changes and persevere. You never know what awaits you when you turn the next corner. It could just be the happiness you’ve always dreamed about.

- Vicky De Coster - www.wackywomanhood.com
Click here for more of Vicky's posts. 

She's baaaack ... and badder than ever! A former member of the original Spirited Woman Blogger Team, Vicky DeCoster is an award-winning humor writer and the author of Husbands, Hot Flashes, and All That Hullabaloo! and The Wacky World of Womanhood. She has been published in over 60 magazines, books, and on several web sites. Vicky lives in Nebraska with her husband and two children where she is working on her third book of humorous essays.

Comments

[Vicky DeCoster]

Thank you Jenni, Lori, and Aayla for your wonderful comments and quotes! You never know who might be silently admiring your perseverance, so keep on keepin' on!

[Aayla Avalon]

I am in the midst of writing my first novel and lately have been reading a LOT of blogs/articles about writing. The one thought that I keep hearing and reading has become my mantra, keep going, don't give up. I find the people I admire most are the ones who do precisely that. Very timely blog!

[Lori Boxer]

One of my favorite sayings that I have prominently displayed on the wall in my office, and one that I often make my clients read out loud is by the writer and photographer, Michelle C. Ustaszeski:

If you fail the first time, consider yourself normal
and try again.

If you fail a second time, consider yourself special
for you have what it takes to succeed.

If you fail a third time, consider yourself extraordinary, for many people would have already given up.

Lori Boxer
Weight No More Diet Center
www.weightnomoredietcenter.com
NOTHING tastes as good as being SLIM feels!

[Jenni]

Very poignant as this touches me on a very personal level. Rejection also gives us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves.

To quote that great philosopher, Tim Allen, in the movie, "Galaxy Quest": Never give up. Never surrender.

So shallow and yet so deep! ;)

- Jenni