Rejection Against Passion: The Struggle to Continue
When you are a child you are told you can be and do anything you have ever wanted. With enough grit, perseverance, and hard work, any goal you imagine is attainable. However, after a certain amount of time, which funnily enough has nothing to do with growing up, you realize that no amount of those attributes will lead you anywhere if you don’t have passion for what you are trying to pursue. For some reason, until you discover what you are passionate about, the human condition will always lose out to the weight of rejection.
The truth is that every person you have ever met has faced rejection in their lifetime. Many of us remember our first run-in with its ugly jaws. For me, it was when I was in the 6th grade when tried out for my county’s Junior Varsity soccer team. I remember after a week of tryouts and my uncertainty of whether I performed well enough to secure a spot as a center forward, my mom turned to me and asked “well do you think you did better than five of your teammates?”. I responded yes. According to the team roster posted at the end of the week, however, I had not. Some kids would have thrown a fit, some may have cried, and others may have taken it as a personal challenge to do better and reach that goal next season. I, however, could not have seemed to care less. I gave a quick, disappointed shrug before returning to my school work.
And just like that my next filler passion was school. I would wake up early and stay up late, absorbing every piece of information my teachers would fill me with. I was good at it, I took pride in being a “gifted kid” who read three grades ahead and tested out of most English and History courses. This “school thing” was enjoyable and easy, until I took Algebra 1 and realized just how bad it felt to get C’s and lower in coursework that you were truly trying your hardest in. How it took such a detrimental hit to my character to have to get a tutor to barely scrape by. I was always meant to be the one tutoring others, helping them finish their projects, getting paid to write essays with a $20 bonus for securing an A, what had happened to the brilliant kid I was?
Nothing. I still graduated high school in the top 15% of my class with an Associate’s Degree in Media and Communications, with a plan to start at my University in the fall. That was until I got the news that I had been placed in the spring class, a full semester behind my peers. Something about that moment broke me down. Years of running as fast as I can just to have the finish line moved back even further caught up to me, and I had my first Anxiety Attack. Something as simple as being pushed back a semester when I was already 2 years ahead of the pace had made me feel entirely gutted, a hollow shell of wasted potential.
Something you don’t realize when you are 18 and violently sobbing on your bedroom floor in the middle of the night, is that you are more than grandiose accomplishments. People are not inclined to sit and judge your life over a bucket of popcorn and a Cherry Coke. You are not the butt of the joke nor the main character at the center stage of a tragedy. You are you, and you continue to have potential regardless of all the rejections and disappointments you have had, and will continue to face. That failed relationship from 6 years ago does not define your ability to love and be loved. The jobs that are rejecting you actively may be leading you somewhere you had not previously considered, handing you a key to open a door to a life you are abundantly happy in. Having a passion for a career goal is ideal, but when that need overcomes your passion for personal peace and happiness, it is simply an obsession, and your spirit will falter.
Being only a few years older than I was then, about to graduate and move into my first apartment, I can appreciate letting myself marinate in the feelings that surround rejection because it has taught me how to better recognize and handle it. It has also taught me how to allow myself to be a young adult rather than trying to pretend to know all of the right decisions and proper answers. The time for constantly trying to outshine everyone is childhood, adulthood is for finding the people, relationships, and opportunities that are meant for you, and I for one am happy to be here.
