More on those dreams, or lack of. Some great comments on the last one. I want to go into some of them in another post. But I was thinking more about the abandonment of dreams and thought back to early rejections, hence the teenage version of myself in the pic.A phrase I've often heard says that it is the journey that is important, not the destination.
And yet we are driven by destinations, not journeys. In most cases, the journey becomes worthless if the correct destination is not reached. Wasted time and energy.
I think back to crushes I've had on people. Some serious. Others just when people sort of made their way into my head, temporary and amounting to little more than the crush itself. I don't think I've ever enjoyed that. Ever. It's not fun. Thoughts seem twisted, they lead to self-doubt, endless questions and a slight queasy feeling in my stomach.
I think back to crushes I've had on people. Some serious. Others just when people sort of made their way into my head, temporary and amounting to little more than the crush itself. I don't think I've ever enjoyed that. Ever. It's not fun. Thoughts seem twisted, they lead to self-doubt, endless questions and a slight queasy feeling in my stomach.
What is fun and very exciting is when that crush leads to an actual connection. But that's the destination.
The journey, the crush, for me, is actually a pretty horrific experience.
And that, I think, is because it amounts to wanting something I don't have. Or, in some cases, know I will never have. The reason I'm using a crush as an example there is that it is quite a primal, pure emotional version of what I'm talking about. But wanting anything, even on a very logical level, has elements of that. The fear of rejection, the sense of unfulfillment, the temptation to obssess on things that will never happen and, eventually, the letting go and moving on.
Now that I'm thinking of relationships, I remember reading a book as a teenager on girls and how to get them. Yes, I read a book like that. No, it didn't help. It said basically just keep asking girls out. You may go through 99 rejections but that 100th time could be the winner.
But what kind of demoralised worthless shell would I be after being rejected by 99 girls? There would be nothing left of any humanity for that 100th girl to respond to.
But what kind of demoralised worthless shell would I be after being rejected by 99 girls? There would be nothing left of any humanity for that 100th girl to respond to.
When those rejection letters came through one after another last year, trying to get a project moving, it was like that. They didn't get easier. Each one cut deeper. And I was left damaged.
Was it worth it?
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3 comments:
There's stories going around about multi millionares, such as that sanders guy, that guy who invented the special recipe for KFC was rejected 3000 times or something ridiculous, but I think that makes him more of a nut than entrepreneur.
Well that's the thing - there are success stories. But how many? Compared with how many who spend their life beating down those doors?
After 2999 rejectios for my fried chicken, I think I would have taken the hint.
But it also illustrates something that's probably important - people don't know jack shit. At least some of those 2999 should have seen they were on to a winner.
The philosophical and a bit of moronic response is: it's worth it, provided you learn something from those 99 rejections.
But, reading about that Atlantic article I linked in the other post, made me wish there were some sort of previous settings for this interactive videogame we call "life".
Some people play on 'Normal' mode and they get bored. Some people play on 'Hard' or 'Insane' and they thrive on the challenge.
...While some of us wished we could play on 'Easy'. At least until we learned the ropes and got a hang for the play style.
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