No is meaningless

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”-Ray Bradbury

This blog is simply a suggestion for those in need of New Year’s resolution, or those who need another one to add to the list of things to change or improve on in the next 365 days. or 16 days, or 3 depending on your self discipline. I know it’s not even December yet, but it’s never too early to start planning. 

I heard a story about producer Steven Spielburg and how he got his start by wondering off of tour on the Universal Studio’s lot and started meeting people and making connections which began his career. 

That got me thinking; how much guts it had to take to knowingly sign up for the tour knowing full well that you just want to sneak off and begin a career even though your probably breaking the tour rules, and perhaps breaking a few laws in the process.

But what’s the worst that could happen? Honestly, who cares if people say no? At the end of the day, what does it matter? Rejection doesn’t seem so bad when you look forward in time and analyze all the success and joy that simply asking could gain you. Nor does rejection hurt as bad as looking back in time and wishing that you had asked. 

So this upcoming year all I am asking is that you simply try. I know it sounds easy, but it’s anything but that because sometimes it hurts to hear no. But what if there is a “yes” to be found amongst the “no’s”? That one “yes” could very well make you forget about all the rejection. 

Take a chance and ask him/her out, talk to your boss about that new position, apply to that college you don’t think you have a chance at, apply to a bigger, better job you have always dreamed of, send out your poetry to a publisher, try out for the part in the play you think you have no chance for. 

What is the worst that could happen? They could say “no”. A “no” from someone you may never see or hear from again? A person that is simply on the other line of the phone that you may never meet? The person who sent the rejection letter? Who cares?! Life is too short to worry more about rejection rather than lavish in the possibilities that simply asking a simple question might bring.

RESOLVE TO SIMPLY ASK, AND PROMISE YOURSELF THAT NO IS MEANINGLESS.

I’ve read this quote before and loved it, but I do not know who originally said this. 

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errors and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”