Facing Rejection

By Clove Morgan

You can say it, your best wasn’t good enough. It is way more common than you think. People can try as hard as they can and do as much as they please; their efforts can still amount to unfavorable outcomes. I spent my whole life at the top of my class. I always made the honor roll, my extracurriculars involved academics, and I took as many APs and college courses as I could. Now, as a college student, where I have shifted from youth to the professional world, I am no longer the best. But that’s okay. It just took me a long time to understand that not being the best doesn’t dictate my value.

I have a hard time distinguishing my self-worth from my success in education. I was trademarked “the smart girl” by my high school friends. Not the pretty, fun, or popular one, but the smart one, and that was a reputation that I had to uphold. I had to be quiet, serious, maybe sardonic at times. I needed to fit the expectations people had of me and, by extension, the standard I had set for myself. All of a sudden, 93% meant the end of the world, and I silenced the silly side of my personality as though it was a punished child in time-out. I lost a lot of the best things in my life trying to be an extreme version of myself and missed out on even more—friendships, relationships, major events like proms, grad parties, etc. But I figured it would all be worth it—to what end, I didn’t know.

College came around, and I attended an art school for dramatic writing where being the best in academics didn’t really matter. We had to take general education classes, but our foundations were things like design, drawing, and digital arts programs. But I’m a writer. I can’t draw; all of that talent went to my sister. There was no way, in a sea of budding artists that specialized in every art medium, that I could be the best anymore. I faced my first B in years in the base-level drawing class required for my major. I was devastated and had my first college-scale anxiety attack from the pressure of having to do something I wasn’t good at. Art doesn’t come naturally to me; I can’t study Quizlet sets until my eyes burn to learn how to properly shade an egg (a drawing I got a 77% on, by the way).

I chose my classes and professors intentionally, guaranteeing my success from the blunder of my first quarter in university. At the price of my mental and social health, I withheld urges to explore my new city and attend parties in favor of staying in, studying, or rewatching Pretty Little Liars for the fifth time. I couldn’t be the one that had friends and went out, I was the stay-at-home-smart-friend. I didn’t know how to be social anyway. I felt I had missed the trial period in high school, where I could gain the footing of my going-out persona. At some point, friends from class started dragging me out to movie nights and restaurants, and I got a taste of what it meant to have a life beyond school.

In spite of this, I still had to be on top of everything, and my perfectionism seeped out into other facets of my life, too.

I was in relationships that made me feel as though I had to be the best and perfect partner at all times. I needed to be the ideal girlfriend that was willing to do anything, and everything asked of me, kind and caring at all times—obedient. My voice was snuffed out because I was so afraid that standing up for myself would mean losing all that I had worked so hard for. 

There is so much pressure on young people, especially those who are femininely aligned, to be perfect. You have to have stellar grades, make money, be an exemplary partner/child/friend/etc. It’s just not possible when you’re not being yourself. I sacrificed everything, most of all my identity. In the end, I was rejected by a lot of the things I thought would make or break me. Relationships end, tests are failed, and job applications aren’t accepted. It is a necessary inevitability that rejection will happen to all of us. Then why does it hurt so much?

We all have been faced with rejection in some regard. Whether it’s being last picked on a playground kickball team, not hearing back from an employer, or hitting a cone during your driver’s test. All of these are mundane things that happen every single day to thousands of people. As a teenager, there is so much on our shoulders: preconceived standards we are still getting used to and the mountain of our future in front of us to climb. You have to learn your own limits and not let the fear of rejection force you to put your well-being aside.

Over the past few years, I have been an array of different versions of myself. Just about the only thing they have in common is the fear of rejection, something even the current me has. You won’t ever be perfect; striving for it is equally unattainable. Going so long without a break to ease your stress can only end with rejection—the primary one being self-rejection—neglect of yourself and your needs. It is best to learn now how to see beyond the negative feelings associated with being turned away, visualizing instead the different possibilities you may have now that you are free to look in another direction. This isn’t a how-to guide on how to deal with rejection; you can’t give advice about something you haven’t learned how to do, after all. But we all feel that similar fear, and it is something to be conquered by the parts of your life that have survived every trial up until the present—you are more than rejection as you are the one that thrives despite it.