Have you ever flashed back to the days of your life...the people you have encountered, those that have embraced you and those that never opened their doors to you? Do you ever remember how many times you sought and were rejected? Do you remember how many times you wanted to do something and someone told you, “you are not the person you we are looking for…you do not match our quality and we are not certain of your capabilities among others?”
Sometimes we walk into
people offices and tell them I can do this and the other for you and you are openly
and out rightly rejected without second thought. They never take the initiative
to do some basic research about you. Sometimes you look at someone and you fall
in love with them. After a lot more debate with yourself, you gain the courage and
put on that mask of the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and say to the person
how you feel about them. Consequently you are told, you are not the kind of
person I can ever date. Imagine the
feeling that comes with rejection! You begin to ask yourself questions from whether
it’s because you are poor, whether it’s because of your age, religion, colour
and others to imagining whether you are damp or generally worthless.
Unsurprisingly, many of
these rejections come from people within out circles. The people that claim to
know us, those that are only keen on your weakness rather the strengths. Those that
never want to acknowledge your contribution to society and those that want to
block opportunities for you.
With rejection, we tend to
relegate ourselves to lonely individuals getting to almost hate each and every
one we meet in life so long as they possess qualities and similarities to the people
that have rejected us in the past.
Many people have destroyed themselves
due to rejection. Some have killed themselves as others have killed others due
to rejection. Whereas rejection is a painful experience that comes with
psychological tortures, people shouldn’t lose hope.
The greater percentage of
people in the world who have gone to succeed are those that were rejected in
the past. Some time back, I was reading through some essays submitted to the
Queen Commonwealth Essay Competition, 2016 and one of the essays contained
lines such as, "Walt Disney was said to have less imagination by a
company and dismissed, but went ahead to be great .Michael Jordan was not
selected in his school’s basketball team he locked himself in his room and he
is one of the best players today .Oprah Winfrey was fired by the producer of a
local channel who had said that she was ‘Unfit for television’ and now Oprah’s
name is known to almost everybody across the globe. Before Microsoft, Bill
Gates suffered great loss in his first business and also belonging from middle
class family he didn’t have money but he is now one of the richest men alive”
Sometimes we fail to make an appealing picture in the minds of the people
who know us, those we live with daily and those that interact with us either in
the place of work, home, origin or residence because they do not believe in us.
Jesus didn’t perform many miracles in Jerusalem because the people of that
place never believed in him. And where there is always prejudice and conceived
bias, however hard you try to be good, you will always appear unable to those
people.
Sometimes they begin to make statements like, this young man/ woman that I
have been seeing here for the last five years claims he/ she can do this and
the other. Sometimes some people deliberately choose not to acknowledge whatever
you are good at.
In dealing which such circumstances, always accept rejection with an array
of positivity. Let your rejection be the stepping stone in all you future endeavors.
Work to better yourself in several aspects and work to show that you are not what
they thought you were. Zinedin Zidane now the Real Madrid Coach was once
rejected by Totenham Hotspur football Club for being too wooden, but went on to
become one of the world’s greatest footballing icons with Madrid and France.
Steve Jobs was dismissed by Apple, a
company he helped found and later went on to found Macintosh and one other company
that went on to flourish, he was later recalled after Apple Showed signs of crumbling.
Macintosh was subsequently bought by Apple. These and many other stories are just
few that you can learn from.
Embrace every rejection, aspire to be better every day. Have the courage,
determination, and personal intuitive and always have the energy to get up when
you have fallen.
fekakoro@gmail.com +256755229518 @ekakorofredrick
Ekakoro Fredrick Etoori has emerged through the corridors of disbelief to be one of the inspiring young men in the world as a leader/ enterprise, Behaviour change communications trainer/ mentor and consultant.
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