I must admit, I've been rejected from many things before and for many reasons, but I have yet to be rejected for being too young. A book club here just rejected me because they said I was too young to join them. If at 32, I am too young, I suppose I should take that as a compliment!

What's amazing is how much rejection hurts, even being rejected from the smallest things. Even when you know you have no hope of getting accepted. I try out for things, just to encourage myself to get projects completed. And then when I don't get accepted or win, I feel so sad. Sometimes I feel sad for days. Even though, mentally, I know there was no chance or that it doesn't mean anything, emotionally it's not possible to ignore the rejection.

The good thing is, it doesn't seem to have stopped me from trying to submit, however I don't know if that's the answer either. Why is it so important to me that others accept my work? Why do I need an "official" stamp of approval? Why can't my work be enough for me? I think I really need to think hard about the answers to these questions so that I know what my motivations are. If all this is just to seek approval, I need to find other forms of it. If it's to stretch myself and give myself deadlines, those are good reasons. The best thing about those reasons is that they don't depend on the outcome. By the time I submit my work, I have already completed something and I have also stretched myself. Those should be enough to feel good.

If I am going to submit my work and keep putting myself out there, I think it's important to keep that in mind.

Rejection is part of day to day life. We get rejected in small and big ways regularly. Just like we get accepted in small and big ways. It's important to celebrate the acceptances and grow from the rejections without taking them personally. I need to remind myself of this regularly. I need to stop diminishing the good and exaggerating the bad.

I know I have this terrible personality flow where if someone thinks I am great, I quickly stop respecting or looking up to that person. I figure they must not know what they are talking about. And if someone doesn't think I am hot shit, why they must be totally right.

And you thought you were fucked up.