“There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments, but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.” Anton Chehkov
This past week I learned an essay I submitted for publication failed to garner any positive attention. I received a brief, but gracious email stating my submission failed to meet their criteria. The one word I heard in surround-sound and high definition: rejected. After closing my inbox, it flashed in my mind. Unsettled, I filled my personal black hole with distractions: answering emails, revising an article for a freelance project, while reminding myself, that I will submit this same essay to another publication.
Despite small, large, personal and professional rejections in my past, it feels as if I am experiencing this angst for the first time. This recent “you are not good enough” moment made me ask these questions: How do I handle rejection? Has my thought process evolved from my twenties and early thirties? Do any of us really embrace rejection?
As I contemplated these questions, my daughter complained to me about two friends who exclude her from joining their group. She says, “Momma, they don’t like me. I do not understand.” I comforted her and encouraged her to play with different friends. She wiped her tears and in the very next second, she appeared ready to digest next moment. For the remainder of the evening, she never mentioned the incident again.
I am always amazed at how my daughter, without even realizing it, teaches me so much how to handle my some of my own struggles. Bouncing back and moving forward are not traits that I always keep at the forefront. I tend to take one “rejection” and magnify it to other areas of my life. It becomes one of those personal pity sessions, where I am adept at feeling sorry for myself. The essence of rejection is how I choose to handle it. How many times have I heard that? The most repeated clichés are the lessons I struggle to internalize.
Ultimately, what choice do I have? I know rejection will happen again. My daughter helps me accept this truth:This is where the real living happens.
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
…and it’s what we do with rejection that determines what kind of person we are. It reminds me of the picture I shared on my Facebook page once about all those great men and women who were “rejected” at one point or another and later proved the world wrong. I love that your daughter helped you realize that’s where the true living begins, great reminder.
I am a first time visitor from SITS and love your honest and heartfelt writing style. Good luck with breaking through publishing barriers. I know it’s a tough business, so many great writers out there. Nice to meet you Rudri.
Rejection never easy, it hurts. So true that the most repeated clichés are the lessons all of us struggle to internalize. Keep writing as long as you write with passion and purpose you can never be wrong. Forget the rejection tomorrow is a new day!
How we handle rejection makes us stronger. Rejection often has more to do with the other person or company and their needs and less to do with us. In the case of kids, it often has more to do with the child doing the rejecting, meaning that child is insecure enough to feel that they need to treat someone else badly to make themselves feel important. Life is not always fair, but I think those that can rise above the rejection and simply move on to bigger and better things without tearing themselves down will ultimately find that they are stronger and will be able to handle the more difficult situations that come along in life.
Rejection is difficult and writers most often face it. I try to remember it is the “opinion” of the editor and we don’t always like the same things…it helps a little bit but it still feels like rejection.
Sending essays out to editors?? Fantastic! Yes, rejection happens, but only when you are being a brave writer and sending your work out to the world. A rejection letter is a BADGE OF HONOR, my friend. A rejection letter means that you are a professional writer who understood how to market a piece of work, but will need to keep repeating that process until she finds the right editor/essay match. No more, no less.
I’m rooting for you!
I’m finding rejection letters are getting a bit softer and kinder these days – like editors and agents have taken classes in bedside manners. But it still stings. Kids are so great, among so many other aspects of their spirits, at modeling truly living in the moment. Teacher? Master? Student? Novice? We move back and forth as parents, don’t we?
It’s never easy, even when you can attribute the “rejection” to things that are beyond your control. Just know that you are in huge, huge company as a writer.
I like what a former classmate of mine in a writing class had said about rejections: she began looking at her collection of rejection letters as a sign that she was writing and putting herself out there. That is definitely saying much more than the writer who has not risked rejection by not even putting the effort into writing. I think your rejection is an achievement, Rudri — and then one day, absolutely, you will get more publications.
(Am slowly catching up after being away on vacation.)
Writers, painters, musicians, actors. The rejection we feel is of a particularly personal nature because the work we do blends into and grows from who we are. We’re putting ourselves out for show at least as much as a skill set.
Believe me, I have my share of “thanks but no thanks” letters… We all do. It hurts.
We lick our wounds, read some more, write some more, live some more. Then we keep submitting, knowing the rejections will come and at some point – a yes.
xo
I took a writing class with someone who used to hang all of his rejection letters on the wall beside his desk. He didn’t consider it to be his failing, but how hard he was working (it also helped remind him not to submit the same story to a magazine that had already turned him down).
Bravo for submitting your essay! It is like sending a little piece of yourself out there. For that you should be very proud. Children can be our best teachers.