The Most Important Relationship You Will Ever Have: Rejection

Let’s face it, some of the most emotional times of your life deal with rejection and your reaction to it. Come with me on a journey, all the way back to little you. You’re at the grocery store with your parents. There, shining atop an end cap in all its glory, is the candy.

It calls to you; it beckons to be eaten. After all, you are the only child in the world who is capable of doing this. There is nobody around, nobody to save the candy. It falls to you to be the one to shoulder this burden. Unfortunately, there is only one thing that stands in your way.

Enter Parents.

Now, this is a situation that I am all too familiar with. I mean, I know we tell our kids that we are going to the grocery store for an exhaustive list of items, but candy is never on it. However, when we arrive, it seems like this is the only thing on their minds. What if there is something wrong? What if the candy really is calling to them?

Sadly, we will never know, because of this little thing called rejection.

You will face it your entire life, and sometimes it will not be pleasant at all. Sometimes it will be gruesome and emotional and you won’t know what to do with it. I have listed some of my favorite forms of rejection in no particular order:

1.      Toys – For many of us out there, this is generally the first type of rejection that will come about. Parents are evil. There I said it. They never give us candy or toys no matter how happy it makes us. In fact. There was a recent article out confirming that sugar highs are not actually a thing. If only they would read it.

Long story short, this is a terrible time in your life. Sure, you get the Halloween and Easter candy, but just look at Wal-Mart with an entire aisle covered in candy. IT’S NOT FAIR. Then you become a parent and realize that maybe it is less about being fair and more about the sanity of the household.

2.      Dating – The only thing that is less fair than not getting the toys and candy that we want is getting rejected in the dating world. I mean just go back. You’re in junior high. Your friends just set you up with this amazing girl in the next higher grade than you. You think she is so hot; the problem is, she doesn’t know you exist.

This isn’t exclusive to junior high. It seems we are always chasing someone we can’t get. Maybe it’s human nature, maybe its psychological. I don’t know, I’m a writer, not a doctor. And besides, I have a good personality. She should be attracted to my personality that she doesn’t know I have.

3.      Job – Ah, the job rejection. If you have never been rejected from a job, then chances are, you’ve probably not applied to very many. It is a grueling mess to be out of work and applying frantically only to get told no over and over. This is for younger people fresh out of high school but also adults who may have been laid off. It sucks, I can tell you from experience.

There is no job that is beneath you. I have known people who refused to work because fast food and janitorial work was beneath them. The truth is, whatever supports you and your family is the perfect job.

4.      Query Letter – You didn’t think I was going to get though an entire blog post and not bring up writing, did you? Ha! Once you have passed the first three levels of your life, you stumble onto yet another form of rejection. The boss level:

The Query Letter

Sure, some people get published their first time around. Others give up and move on to self-publishing, and still others don’t even think about traditional and go straight to self-publishing. The great thing about getting rejected is it teaches you something. If you aren’t getting requests, then maybe your letter needs work. If your manuscript gets rejected, maybe it needs work.

Maybe you realize that your character has no stakes. Maybe there is a large plot hole in your manuscript. If you can take these criticisms and turn it around to your own favor, think of how well your manuscript will be after fixing all the mistakes. After all, if you fix all the mistakes, and you have a perfect manuscript, how could it ever get rejected.

One thing that I have learned is that no matter how old you get, there is always the possibility of rejection around each and every corner you come to. The important thing is not that you go through it and learn to never experience it again. The point, is to embrace rejection. Figure out the reason it is happening so you can make it better.

Relax. The reason you aren’t getting candy is because it is making you crazy. Move on. One day you will find someone who makes you wonder why you were ever sad. Keep striving. That dream job is only an application away.

And keep querying. You may get a thousand “it’s not for me”, but in the publishing industry, it only takes one “oh my god, I love it.”