Rejection is one of the worst feelings we can think of. It hurts like nothing else, and our fear of it keeps us from doing a lot of stuff. We’re too afraid to ask that person out, in fear of rejection. We’re too afraid to ask over those friends, in fear of rejection. We’re too afraid to be honest about our feelings, or ask those difficult questions, all in fear of rejection. But as hurtful as it can be, I am convinced that rejection has only been a good thing for me.
Think of a spool of twine. The interlocking strings make a little rope, wrapping around in a spool just going on and on and on. That’s my brain imagining that that boy may still want me, or friend may still call. That wishful thinking just going on and on and on, just stringing me along. I went for it and then got rejected. It hurt so badly… still does. But when it did, the string got cut, burned off at the end, then pressed together so I wouldn’t unravel. You have to singe the end in order to let go. You gotta burn it off and press yourself back together.
Let me explain why. Basically, you have nothing to lose by learning sooner, rather than later, that a person or people aren’t good for you. You have only to gain from that. I understand we don’t want the hard truth to be true, but it is. They’re just stringing you out and making you unravel. It’s natural to keep hoping, keep wishing that this person still likes us just as much as we do them, but believing so is just keeping a false dream alive. Instead of doing that, we need to stay in touch with reality, the one beyond hopeful thoughts in our heads.
Letting go is probably the hardest decision we can make for ourselves, but it only allows us the opportunity to grow. From the ashes of the singed end, you can now grow into the right direction. One that makes you the priority in your own life. One that makes you less surrounded by people who make you feel insecure, and not enough. One that makes you focus on those things and people who really do love you.
I’ve endured a great deal of this lesson the last few months. I didn’t want to let them go, but realized it had to happen that way, and that all my life, I’d been too afraid to singe the end. I wanted to keep chasing, keep wanting, even though I knew the chances of that friend calling me back, or boy hitting me up, were ever so slim. Of course we hope that. Of course we pursue that. We are human after all. If I hadn’t shot my shot I still would be running around chasing those things in my head and making up wildly unrealistic expectations of what could happen. I’d be day dreaming after the boy, calling the long gone friend, and simply wasting my energy. I wasn’t living in my own head anymore. The rejection made me aware of reality.
So don’t be so afraid of the hard conversations. Don’t be afraid to be confrontal of a reality, or to ask those people the hard questions and receive the answer you think you don’t want. Again, you have nothing to lose by learning sooner, rather than later, that a person isn’t good for you. You have only to gain from that. Look for the reality beyond your own head. That person’s feelings toward you are apart of that reality, and you’ll never know the truth if you don’t ask. Being afraid of the truth doesn’t make it any less so. If you do, the spiral of waxed twine is just going to keep going and going. Cut it off. Singe the end. Grow from the ashes into the you you were always meant to be.
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck”. – Buddha
Read next!
Euphemisms. They’re All Around Us.