How was your day today? Here’s how mine went…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did not set one foot outside the door today, but I know it was cold this morning. I woke up tired. I remember back in the day, I don\u2019t know maybe 10, 15 years ago I used to hear people say that and I would think to myself, what does that mean? How does one wake up tired? <\/em>Now I\u2019m all too familiar with the phrase, with the feeling. So I said to myself, I\u2019m just going to have a rest day today. I\u2019m just going to do nothing today.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I turned on YouTube and watched this video about entrepreneurship and that video made me think about rejection and how I\u2019ve spent most of my life being afraid of it. I mean even the littlest thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember one time back in the day when I was in the 9th<\/sup> grade, I got dropped off at school early, like maybe an hour before school started. There were only a few kids on campus at that time, and by few I meant me and two other kids\u2014 one guy one girl. I had this pudding cup that I really wanted to eat, but I had no spoon. I was familiar with the two other kids that were there because they were always there early too, so I had no problem asking them if they had a spoon. They both said they didn\u2019t have a spoon. Then the girl suggested that I go to the office and ask if they had a spoon. This was a very small school. The office was a short distance away, but I told her I was afraid to go ask them in the office. To that she replied, \u201cwhy, the worst they could say is no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t say anything after that. I didn\u2019t have the nerve to tell her that was precisely what I was afraid of. I didn\u2019t want to hear them tell me no. I didn\u2019t understand how she framed hearing no as no big deal. Even though I\u2019d just gotten a no from those two and it wasn\u2019t a big deal, somehow getting it from the office people would have been different, and so I did not go to the office to ask for a spoon. I don\u2019t remember what happened to my pudding cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But anyway, I said all that to say, that is how much I hate rejection. Even rejection from simple things like getting a spoon has given me fright. And over the years I\u2019ve done my best to avoid it. They say it\u2019s better to try and fail than fail to try. Or, like my grandmother used to say, nothing beats a fail but a try. But I\u2019ve always rather fail to try if I think my trying is going to end up in a fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funny thing is, even though this has been my practice, I haven\u2019t managed to avoid failure or rejection. I\u2019ve experienced more rejection than I have success. And however hard or embarrassing, hurtful or devastating those experiences have been, I always bounce back. If it\u2019s something I really want, I always eventually try again. I always smile again, laugh again, experience joy again. If there is one thing that I\u2019m successful at (of course there are more, but for the purposes of this point) it\u2019s getting over rejection. As much as I hate the feeling, I know I\u2019ll get over it. It never keeps me down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that\u2019s just something I need to keep in mind as I go forward with this self-publishing journey with a 20 year old story I wrote that was once rejected by The New Yorker. There\u2019s no need for me to be afraid if it gets rejected again, because I know I can bounce back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But believe me when I say, I think The New Yorker definitely got it wrong. This story is amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How was your day today? Here’s how mine went… I did not set one foot outside the door today, but I know it was cold this morning. I woke up tired. I remember back in the day, I don\u2019t know…<\/p>\n