Rejection isn't always easy to talk about. I don’t know about you and your stories of rejection, but until I got to college, I'm not sure I really experienced any true rejection. I was lucky enough to grow up in a world and a family that prided me on doing my best. It wasn't about winning or always being number one, it was about being the best I could possibly be and working my hardest.
I grew up content with the outcome of events as long as I knew that I tried my hardest. To be honest, I also grew up with unconditional love and praise, so I rarely went a day without thinking that I was amazing. I am not saying that when I came to college all that changed, but something did change. I was rejected–harshly, painfully and flat out.
When someone tells you that you are not as good as you think you are, it hurts. When I started school and went through recruitment for a sorority, I felt that I was being told that a lot. It hurt to be rejected by a house you loved and as much as people tell you that it is not personal, I felt completely and wholeheartedly that it was.
My ego took a huge hit and that was the first time that had ever happened to me. The first time that I doubted myself so strongly. I spent some time feeling sad and upset and intimidated by the people that got into the house that I wanted to be in. I would look at the girls wearing their letters and feel like they were automatically better than me because they were in that sorority and I was not.
It has been some time since recruitment and I have really had a chance to reflect on everything that occurred that crazy week. Just because someone wears a set of letters does not make them better than you. Just because someone wears another set of letters does not mean that they are worse than you.
Constantly, when I was feeling down following this hectic process I wondered why. I was always the girl who was kind to others, confident in herself and loved life and whatever challenges it threw me. Why did I loose all that because people didn't like me? I realized that what I learned when I was a child about confidence helped me through this rough patch. No one telling me how great I was, was going to fix how I felt about myself. I needed to pull from within.
This is why I don’t think I should be looking back on my childhood and blaming people for not showing me what rejection was like earlier because through being praised and built up I learned a very valuable lesson. I learned to love myself. I learned to take pride in the way that I look and act and that no matter what other people think, everything will be okay if I love who I am, and the way that I live my life.
Loving yourself is not dependent upon who likes you because just as you don’t like everyone, everyone is not going to like you. Loving yourself does not come from comparing yourself to others as I once thought back in high school. Love yourself is recognizing that you are special.
So, ultimately, put a smile on your face, put on your favorite song, and dance in the mirror until you remember how amazing you are.
