5 Reasons to Seek More Rejection
Your ego needs a kick in the head. (Mine needs two)
The ego, or persona, is not you. It is the projection that you have of yourself – like an avatar. Who you are is just flesh and spirit – the same as everyone else. But we all forget this. We get caught up in our social standing, title, position within our family, our chosen sports or hobbies and we say that that is us. For example, I am an executive, father of two, cyclist, musician, etc. Those are things I do and roles I may play. But when I am facing a grizzly bear, I am none of those things. I am flesh and spirit (and I am peeing in my pants). When you push yourself into situations that may bring rejection, you are bringing yourself back to your essence, your true self. And from that foundation, you can start fresh and discard the ego for a moment and be laser focused on that grizzly bear.
You are lazy and complacent.
Comfortable is a dangerous place to be. It resembles death. A corpse comfortably rots in the ground without lifting a finger to fight it. Literally. Each day is just like the last with maggots munching away until the bones are picked clean. How different is it when each of your days looks just like yesterday? Definitely much will stay the same. You will sleep, eat, pay your bills, and have sex if you can. But what defines your progress is what you did differently than the day before. Expanding into areas where you face rejection is proof positive that you are growing. And we all know what the opposite of that is.
You are getting weak.
The muscle rejects the weight it encounters. Gravity is rejecting you pushing that barbell up. You have to exert your will into the situation to lift it towards the sky. The more you repeat this act against gravity’s rejection, the lighter everything around you feels. Your muscles tear and then miraculously repair themselves so you can take on even more rejection. Applying this to all areas of your life will make each endeavor feel more effortless as you develop the habit of seeking out more ways to be rejected. It’s not a paradox. It is natural law, and therefore, divine. We have be sold the idea of convenience for so long that we actually think it’s good for us. It is a lie. You are meant to get stronger. Rejection is the daily vitamin to ensure that.
Your relationships are stagnant.
You are the average of the five people you associate most with every day. Most people are stuck. Sorry. The fix is to either inspire those around you or surround yourself with people who inspire you. Do both. Look at your five. If they aren’t bringing you up or following you up, they are dragging you down. The remedy to this can be painful and difficult, but it’s your life, isn’t it? How many more shots at this thing are you going to get? When you accept and face rejection on your journey, you will find more friends – true friends. You will find yourself in new situations with new people. The ones who accept your push into the unknown may end up being one of your new five. How refreshing. But don’t worry about the old five. We are wired to intimately know approximately 150 other humans before we cross into acquaintance territory. Most of us are far short of our 150. That’s where your old five will go.
You don’t know who your true friends are.
When we share difficult experiences with others, the trauma, if we survive, builds a stronger bond. (Think soldiers in foxholes) Without pushing yourself into areas where people, situations, or Mother Nature will reject you, you will never experience deep friendships. Sharing the same favorite football team will never equate to sharing zero degree weather hiking through the woods at night completely lost for hours and fearing frostbite together. When you can’t buy your way out and must work with the only other human being left who hasn’t run from the difficult situation ahead, you found a true friend.
5 Reasons to give more rejection
You accept too much B.S. Reject it.
The best example of this is television. It’s all B.S. It’s called programming for a reason. It is programming you to become a dumbed-down degraded version of yourself. The flicker-rate is scientifically set to put you in a trance so you are more passive and accepting to the messages shoved in your face. And I’m not talking about the commercials. For the life of our species until roughly the last 75 years we have been listening to natural, unamplified sounds. It is a new phenomenon to believe we must constantly have commercially produced sound jammed in our ears. That includes your running mix that you think helps you go faster. Reject it. Unplug all of it and get your own stuff going. Be an original, not a repeat.
Life is short.
Nobody on their deathbed ever said, “Let me watch ‘The Terminator’ one more time.” I doubt even Arnold Schwarzenegger will say that. Steven King won’t be re-reading his old novels to reminisce his best works. He will probably be pressing on to get one more novel out. And if the Grim Reaper doesn’t take him out, I would imagine he will again start another novel. There is a long time to be dead and if your life does actually pass before your eyes before you die, you have your chance to catch the reruns at that time. It may even be professionally, and divinely, edited. Reject anything that drains away your time on this planet.
You’ve got plenty of time.
Until you don’t. But, since you are still able to read this, you’ve got lots of time. Even if it just five more minutes, think of how many nanoseconds that is (answer is 300 billion, so you’ve got time). Today, the definition of a late bloomer has changed quite a bit. If you are 95, diagnosed with cancer, and given 30 days to live, you can still publish that novel you have always wanted to write. You download a dictation app, dictate the novel, publish it as an eBook on Amazon for free, and watch people download your novel. Heck, the doctor might even give you another 30 days to write the sequel. So, if your 50, what’s your excuse for not starting your writing career? I couldn’t think of any. That’s why I’m writing this.
You deserve it. Reject that which is undeserving of you.
The best thing in your toolbox is you. Use it. You’ve let others use you for years. Employers have known forever, that the best tool in the world is a human being. Unfortunately, most of us didn’t understand ourselves to be somebody else’s socket wrench. But that’s ok. We all can take turns being the craftsman and the screwdriver. It’s called working together. But, when you abandoned your responsibility to be the craftsman and creator in your life, your whole toolset will rust and freeze up.
You are letting everyone else down.
The whole world is watching and waiting for someone else to make the first move. And then when you do, they criticize you. It’s not that they really want to hold you back, they just want to see if you really mean it. No one wants to cheer on a poser. So, to make sure you aren’t just posing, critics take shots at you to see if you are the real deal and deserving of their attention. Which also means, if you are stepping out just to get attention, you deserve to get shot down. Mean it. Do it. Go for it. Eat a big old bowl of rejection every morning. It will scare the life into you.
2017 - John B Murphy III - All Rights Reserved