Rejection

Main Entry: 1re·ject Pronunciation: ri-'jekt1 a : to refuse to accept, consider, submit to, take for some purpose, or use b : to refuse to hear, receive, or admit : REBUFF, REPEL c : to refuse as lover or spouse


Just the sound of the word rejection makes something in my stomach knot up. I know first hand the pain that accompanies rejection. All of us have been rejected in some way. Anything from the rejection by a lover or family member or even a potential employer. What is it about rejection that cuts us all the way to our soul? When we are rejected we immediately began to take stock of our self worth. We wonder what is it about us that doesn’t quite measure up? Many times we try to dismiss the rejection. We cover over it with anything from humor or a coldness about us. We are angered and hurt by the one who rejects us and we may want to lash out at them. What do they know? They are the stupid ones for not picking you. Not picking me. Sometimes the pain of rejection can last for years. A person can be long gone into the grave and you still feel the pain of their rejection. There is no escaping rejection. It happens. It’s a part of life. You can’t take the chance on love without knowing that there is always the possibility that your love will be rejected in return. I have a relationship with someone who rejected me that still bothers me. I am ashamed to admit it because the situation didn’t just happen yesterday it’s been a while and I am still dealing with it. I ask myself why does this situation even after all this time still bother me? There are no easy answers. I wonder if only time heals the wound of rejection or if it is a wound that never really completely heals.

Here’s an interesting side note. I just checked my online account and had a very attractive man with beautiful blue eyes tell me that I was gorgeous and had a great smile. Immediately I thought was I really talking about feeling rejected? Hey sometimes a girl just needs to hear it. Seriously though, rejection takes time to get over. It puts a chink in our armor and can make us question our value and worth. If you have had a string of rejections you begin to really doubt yourself. It even causes you to want to shut down when it comes to relationships. Because the thing is that just getting into any type of relationship from romantic to just your normal friendship you risk rejection. For me personally I felt like last year was a series of rejections. I call it my year of things ending before they even got started. However, you learn that eventually you have to get up, dust yourself off and get back on the path again. Sometimes when you are rejected especially in romantic relationships it’s not really you it is the other person. People can get really strange about love and emotions. Sometimes their own feelings become so much for them that the only way to deal with it is to get rid of the person that is stirring those feelings up. I won’t say not to take rejection personally because it is personal, but realize also that in life you have to take some no’s that were just an ok for you to get to that amazing yes.

Does Love Equal Happiness?

A few weeks before Christmas I called my sister and asked her to choose one of the following: love, good luck, happiness, long life or wealth. She chose love and went on to say that if you have love then you have happiness. I immediately jumped on that statement with total disagreement. I’ve had love and I’ve had happiness. However, I have been in love and been totally unhappy and have been happy without being in love. Here is a warning for those of you who believe that romantic love equals happiness, please don’t read the rest of this blog. For the rest of us more jaded types, please read on.

Happiness is a word we throw around so much that it hardly has any meaning. If you were to ask most people what they want out of life or what their main goal in life is they would tell you it is to be happy. Yet, what does that mean exactly? Merriam Webster defines happiness as a state of well-being and contentment. So, maybe the bigger question is, are we ever really content? Believing that love is the answer to our own personal happiness and personal contentment is a scary thing to believe. I wonder what happens if you never find love, does that mean you will be unhappy the rest of your life? Also, trying to find contentment outside of your own skin can be difficult. You have to learn to be happy in your own life and then having someone else to love you is just whipped cream on the already delicious caramel sundae. Love from a significant other should enrich us and not define our happiness. Not to mention how much pressure is it to put on another person for their love to make us happy? That sort of expectation can be crushing and create more problems. It also makes it easy to cop out and not take responsibility for our own happiness. This notion makes it easy to blame our own unhappiness on the one whose love is supposed to be making us happy.

What about love conquering all? Regardless if other parts of our life are falling a part as long as we have that special someone that loves us we can overcome anything? Love brings a lot to our lives. It can make us better more humble, caring people many times, but it shouldn’t be equated with happiness. Love is only part of what makes us happy and content people. We can be happy and not be in love.

What my sister didn’t realize at the time was that I was actually buying a Christmas present for her. I would have loved to have given her all of those things as a gift. Then her life would probably be content. However, I was picking out necklaces with Chinese symbols on them that represented one of those words. Little did she know at the time that I had already purchased mine and put it in my online shopping cart. Yes, I picked love over all those other things. Because deep down after all of my own heart breaks, disappointments, tears and brokenness I still want to believe in love.