Getting rejected is not fun...

...especially when you really gave in some effort. Take this from someone who is known for tardiness and often has low expectations. Being hopeful and passionate about something rarely comes to such people. But when it does, getting struck down is a real punch in the gut. Perhaps it's like publishing scientific papers: there are those who spend months or years on a single project, which often is expected to translate to some near breakthrough work; then there are those who write manuscripts every other week or so. The latter would write, say about 10 papers, out of which atleast (and I'm low-balling it), 50% would get through. That's like 5 papers. The former however, might end up writing a couple or throuple of articles, that too after much effort. A 50% success rate isn't going to cut it. Even a 70% would not help one get out of utter frustration and anger at oneself, or worse, at others.

You might be thinking that I perhaps got some papers rejected and hence this rant. Or you may think that the rejection I faced was romantic in nature. Neither is the case here. Anyhow, this post is not about the details of the happening itself, but rather my journey of working through the negative feelings of a rejection, and to share with everyone that if you ever failed at something, and I mean at something which you really thought you weren't going to fail at, then do take the time to step back and calm down. We humans are very quick to pass blame, or blame oneself. Not getting one's desired outcome isn't indicative of one's self-worth. Plus, there's the classic cliché of "you can't control everything". I believe that it is possible to control everything, but in an ideal world. We do not exist in ideality, no matter how much Physicists tend to believe so. Things are often not fair, not just to you, but to others too, which if you think about it, I'm sure will make you realize that you have been the source of unfairness to someone at some point. So is it karma you're experiencing? No. It's just life. You can't have good things all the time. It's like when you were a kid, you always got the window seat in a plane, regardless of who you were travelling with. But once you get older, and say have elderly grandparents at the edge of life, or have kids of yourself, you cannot, in most cases claim the window seat anymore. Is it unfair to you? Yes. Is it fair to them? Yes. Was it fair for your elders to always leave you the window seat when you were younger? No. You see the problem. The two sides of life, no matter how much grayness people want to attribute to each, really are black and white. It cannot be, by the nature of itself, be all black or all white for everyone at the same time.

I could go on and on with such banalities, but my intent to start writing was not so. No matter how cheesy all of the above sounds, it's true. You are free to choose your means to vent, just don't do it in the form of negative feelings towards another person. If you do, however, cannot control the urge to play the blame game, just go to sleep. I assure you that you shall make better decisions after a quick nap. Afterall, feelings are just electrical signals and chemicals dancing inside our skulls, right? At least we could pretend they are.

Oh and, if you still can't help feeling sad, disappointed or frustrated, just remember that there were other people who felt the same and survived through it, ones who faced rejection, when you did not. If it's not fair, we can atleast try to give the window seat to others occasionally, just like they gave you at other times. Life is short, but life always has second, third, fourth ad infinitum chances - you just have to move on to one after the next without getting stuck with feelings of depression at any.