Dear rejection, sorry I reject you..

They got ‘married happily’ and they remained ‘happily married’. The couple had only one wish: having a child. Years passed. They did everything possible. They prayed multiple gods and confused them, they consulted doctors, got every medical test done, put their own efforts (Actually the order should have been reverse) and finally they got the good news they had been waiting for. But after a few weeks; the wife came with sad face and announced ‘miscarriage’! Her body had rejected the fetus from the womb and had thrown it away!

Sometimes rejection starts before the birth!

There was a boy, who, despite having all the qualities of a leader, was rejected for contesting in the school leader elections just because he was short. There was a girl who had extraordinary imagination and great language but our education system rejected her to get promoted to the next class as she could not pass Math exam. There was another boy who loved a girl and proposed it to her. She rejected the proposal because of fear that her parents would not accept the boy of different caste. There was a man who topped in every exam throughout his schooldays. He applied for a job. He got rejected because his English sounded like his mother tongue. There was a couple who were happy in love-life before their marriage. But it’s not sure what happened later. Their married life rejected them in the name of incompatibility. There was a man who got frustrated with his nine to five job. He resigned it and started a business investing all his earnings. Market rejected his business mercilessly. Business toppled upside down.

At school, in exams, in job interviews, in love, in life, in business, in marriages, in other relationships, we keep getting rejected at different stages.

We start many a dreams with a good hope and with a great confidence. It takes lot of time to dream, to plan, to accumulate confidence, to get prepared, to start execution and then to complete. But all this process gets shattered in a moment. The girl checks her exam results on the internet and it shows ‘Failed’. The boy brings months and years of his love in his heart and presents it to her. She simply rejects ‘I am not interested’. The man comes with a lot of preparation for the interview. At the end of the interview, the interviewer says ‘We will get back to you.’, which is company’s code to say ‘You are rejected’.

Some rejections are beyond our control. How can a boy with excellent leadership skills grow taller overnight to become the school leader? How can the couple teach their chromosomes to be normal to avoid miscarriage? How can the boy, whose love is rejected by the orthodox girl for the difference of their castes, suddenly get re-born in her caste? Impossible!

Some rejections are the results of our own stupidity and lack of right thought process. We try to leap over a wide-deep trench with overconfidence and fall into it. We don’t even make necessary preparations or plans. We try something which is not our cup of tea. We do not identify our strengths, areas of interest and expertise. We follow some others’ advices and blindly believe one-size-fits-all theory. Just because something has worked greatly for others does not mean it works for us in the same way as well. Just because your relatives (rivals) or neighbours have admitted their son in the Computer Science branch of engineering and he got selected in the campus interview, you take the same decision for your son. He, who would do miracles, if admitted in a course in fine arts, gets brutally rejected by programming languages and artificial intelligence. A teacher who was best at his profession and who confined himself the entire life to classrooms and students invests his savings after retirement in a business without knowing and understanding the needs and capacity of the market.

At that moment, it looks like life has come to a halt suddenly!

Most of the times we are so positive that we do not get prepared for hearing a ‘No’. We do not keep alternatives ready. We do not ask the questions ‘What if..?’ and ‘What next?’. Being positive does not mean being blind to the undesired results. It simply means to think beyond negative. It’s not about being blindly confident that my road will have no thorns. It’s about thinking I won’t go unprepared and I go with readiness to encounter thorns and overcome them with right steps.

Whatever the reasons are, rejections leave us with so many adverse effects. We lose confidence. A fear for failure occupies us. We feel useless and inefficient. It develops self-pity. It makes us think that the world is bad and subsequently that may motivate us to go against our own kindness, honesty, our ethics and goodness. Weak moments that rejection creates make us come to some generic conclusions: the girl who rejects your true love may create hatred in you towards love and all the girls; the exam in which we fail may make us lose trust on entire education system and exam process; the business attempt that defeats us may make us feel that it is meant only for those who are dishonest. We may start seeking solutions at wrong places, with wrong relationships through wrong steps just out of anger against what or who rejected you. Rejections may develop negative viewpoint towards life.

This is exactly when our right thought process can get us out from there. I have found two best ways to fight rejections; One, accept the rejection. Two, reject the rejection.

Let’s understand the root cause for the rejection. Could we do anything differently to avoid that rejection? If yes, accept the rejection. Most of the times, life gives a second chance. Go back and try again. Sometimes, life allows you to create a chance. Create it. If it cannot be undone, at least let’s accept the fact that rejection is because of our own hastiness and stop blaming life.

If you think, you have done everything at your best and you still got rejected for reasons beyond your control, console yourself. Reject such rejections. Appreciate your efforts. Move on. Just think, you may have invested your kindness, intelligence, efforts, money and time on a wrong person, in a wrong company or relationship, at a wrong place. If yes, try investing it correctly again. Who knows! There may be a girl perfectly meant for you waiting and there may be a course or career that suits your interests, thoughts and skills is standing ahead.

Sometimes rejections do miracles and bring fortunes in life! They help you find what you are and what you can be. They close the doors to go to places where others wanted you to go and help you find the doors to reach the destinations meant for you. Years later, you may thank the girl who rejected your love. Had she accepted your proposal that day, you would not have met your soulmate today. You may thank the company that rejected you. Otherwise, you may have not started a company of your own. You may thank the clerk who rejected you in a marriage proposal. That rejection helped you to meet your prince.

Dear rejections, thanks for meeting me now and then in my life. I wouldn’t have discovered my strengths without your meets. I accepted you sometimes and I rejected you some other times. You are a part of my life. Let’s keep meeting.