A mixture of emotions ran through my head as I walked out of the audition room on February 21st. I was hurt, tired and suddenly embarrassed I had even shown up and stood in line. Disappointment is a natural human response, but I was mad at myself for feeling it. Even though I told myself to suspend all shred of hope, I inevitably had built up a string of “What ifs?” in my head that quickly fell as the dirty blonde behind the mac computer uttered the canned “thank you for coming out today...but unfortunately…"
I, along with the other nine people in the room, thanked the woman and filed out of the large room and down the seemingly never-ending hallway. My heeled boots suddenly seemed too high.
“I wasn't good enough” was the loop that danced in my thoughts. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to throw a pity party for one. In what seemed like a short span of time while I had been in college, I had auditioned for two a Cappella groups, the University’s musical, applied to be a campus tour guide and rushed an honors fraternity. All of these attempts at involvement were unsuccessful and I felt like a failure because I was also constantly comparing myself to others and not doing what I love.
Eventually, I packed up the world's smallest violin and stopped feeling sorry for myself. I began to think about what I had learned from all of these endeavors.
Everyone has felt the sharp pang of rejection at some point in their life. It could come from being cut from a sports team, not making a grade, or finding out someone you like does not feel the same way in return. What matters is how you deal with the obstacles life throws at you and how you learn from your experiences. Most importantly, being knocked down shows you are trying. According to Chris Dixon, Internet entrepreneur, “if you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis then your goals aren’t ambitious enough.”
Mozart, Rowling, Einstein, Spielberg, Van Gogh and Gates are all household names that were originally branded as failures before their success. Sylvester Stallone takes "rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat."
Over Easter break, I was scrolling through the new "moments" feature on Twitter and came across a string of tweets by J.K. Rowling in which she released photos of "Harry Potter" rejection letters from publishers. Before the wizarding world became a hit, the author was living on unemployment benefits and struggling to care for her daughter alone. Rowling has since admitted, "by very usual standard[s], I was the biggest failure I knew.” Her goal at tweeting these letters was to inspire budding writers, and others, not to let negative feedback keep them from realizing their dreams.
I decided if I couldn’t be a part of a singing group, I would create my own ways to do what I love. To date, I have sang the National Anthem at four Hawks basketball games and regularly perform at Open Mic Nights hosted by 1851 Entertainment. With a beginners knowledge of Adobe Audition, I started a SoundCloud account where I record my version of my favorite songs.
Mind over matter is a powerful mantra to have and it is a phrase I hear repeated through the phone whenever I worry to my mom that I cannot do something. Once your attitude changes toward positivity, things around you begin to change for the better. Even though I did not make it through the preliminary round of "The Voice," I am grateful for the experience. It only makes me what to pursue my passion more and discover new doors to be opened.
