I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had.
Most of us are vulnerable to rejection no matter how confident or self-assured one looks. Isn’t it a fact that everyone wants acceptance, no matter how rich or popular or good looking that person is.
What actually matters is how we handle being rejected. This part is critical because the emotional maturity and self-esteem of every person vary. One may just shrug off being discriminated while another may pull the trigger or attempt a suicide.
Just yesterday, I experienced the pains of being rejected. Here’s the story:
I’ve applied for this posh job somewhere in asia pacific. Though I am aware that I don’t have any background in the area I’m apllying for, what the heck, I still tried!
The other applicants, who happen to belong in the same industry, speaking in a lingo only “they” can understand, looked at me as if I already cracked because I was there and hoping to be accepted in a job I know nothing about. For the first time in my years as a trainor, I felt my confidence leaving me. I felt small that my co-applicants are good in an area I find myself weak.
In all my years preaching, teaching and coaching people, I’ve always believed that I can say anything and learn anything and get away with anything. I’ve always felt self-assured that I can handle any situation, any subject and any person.
Yesterday, facing the asian interviewer, who happened to be a guy in his mid 40s and an “asshole” as my friend calls him (he also experienced being interviewed by this “chekwa”), I felt like I just got out from college and looking for a job for the first time. With all my luck too, the interview was done in dyad and my partner happened to be an old pro in this industry! He speaks with perfect diction, no-nonsense sort of way and never wavered in his speaking, not even once! And I looked like the yellow chick — helpless, innocent, outcasted.
The “chekwa,” while smiling, told me that I don’t belong in this kind of work. Of course, he managed to sing me praises first like I was good in blah blah blah but weak in blah blah blah… And I know right there and then, I’m not bringing home the bacon.
Frankly, I’m not use to rejection and I’m proud of how I managed to breeze through the rest of the interview smiling and being polite while the future employer is telling me I’m not cut for the job. It was ironic that while I’m hurting inside for being rejected, I was laughing and comically explaining afterwards to my husband how the whole thing went.
Well, like what i told my dear brother-in-law, being rejected in a job and not having a certain skill doesn’t make one less of a person. Especially when that person knows how good he is in other areas and effective in his line of work. This is the reality of what I’ve been teaching our center’s scholars about Multiple Intelligence. Each of us is gifted with a kind of intelligence. It doesn’t mean that if you’re not good in academic and always flunking school, you’re a loser and stupid.
Sometimes, people tend to belittle others by looking at the areas they are not good at. The truth is, all of us are special and gifted with one or more kind of intelligence, we are just too busy hoping to be somebody we are not that we tend to ignore these gifts and focus on skills or talents that are not innate to us. This leads us to feeling that we are not good, that we are losers, that we are unskilled.
I have long ago discovered the kind of person I am and what I am capable of. With this recognition, I was able to develop myself more and focus on my strengths to further both my personhood and professional career. I know that I’m one of those lucky individuals who at an early stage in our lives, discovered and recognized who we are and where we want to be. A lot of people out there are not that lucky. At the age of 30, 40 or 50, they still wonder what kind of intelligence they really have and career path they should take.
I would say that the yellow chick is me in two different pictures —
as a unique individual in that group of people speaking the same lingo sheepishly saying to myself that in my world they can’t do better.
I don’t believe them of course. We should never let someone tell us we can’t. Nobody is a born loser, unless he let it be.
Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.
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