Rejection

October 02, 2018

I've faced a lot of rejection lately.

It's easy to slip into thinking rejection is a negative thing; it can be, but it's also a sign the boundaries are getting tested, envelopes pushed. You may not have earned it yet, but you're sure as hell trying.

I keep a list of "areas for improvement" on the wall of my office. One is "aim higher". Aiming higher means you're going to face more rejection. So in that regard, I'm succeeding at the larger goal of "aiming higher".

On a related note, I saw the following quote in Jonathan Haidt's Happiness Hypothesis:

Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

That's from Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2—proof Shakespeare understood the power of framing.