1. Dentist.
It has been months since your last visit and already it is time again to have a conversation with metal utensils in your mouth. A waiting room with parents and their kids who have gums for teeth take up every seat and floor space. The the only television in the building that has no channels plays the same infomercial for healthy brushing and demonstrations of flossing until the next patient has lost their patience, just in time to be examined orally.
The dentist speaks a scientific gibberish about each of your teeth, tells you that you have a geographic tongue, and you think to yourself that you have not been French kissing anyone, and then you get a report card and oral hygiene gift bag for your mouth to prepare for your next visit in three to six months. You have done a check-up every time you opened your mouth in the mirror. Looks clean.
2. Store.
Shopping for the necessities can be easy since you know where to go every time. Being a shopper is an existence that challenges your ability to buy only what you need. That and the circuitous paths you end up having to take no matter how many people are in the store. It is only a matter of time before you have to return to the store to resupply or to make a new addition to that shopping list you thought you had down pat.
3. Meetings and phone calls.
Obligatory and gratuitous at times, you end up making time and fitting people into your schedule that accommodate their needs more so than yours. Interviews take the cake when it comes to inconvenience. Set up the call, set up the place, set up the time. A day is only so long before you have to work on and finish the next priority in your pecking order. Say what you need to say and let us divide and conquer as soon as possible.
4. Restaurant.
Drive-thrus and takeout lines included, restaurants create this atmosphere of "when do I get to eat?" too soon and too fast. It is a jungle with booths and high-top tables where the waiters and waitresses are the next highest up in the food chain. You are just happy if the appetizer gets to you on time before the family next to you gets the check.
Dining out seems to becoming a rare occasion and the convenience of someone delivering is a bit more immediate than a meal you get right from the kitchen when dining out. Then there is the weight in values of quality and price and whether or not your patience can tell the difference. Sometimes you just want to rent a restaurant that gets your meal time right.
5. Jury duty.
Chances are that the court case you are in are clogging up the courts. There could be more important issues that need to be settled and you have a case that is possibly petty. If the case is serious but no one on the jury can come to a consensus, jury duty becomes an uncivil dispute. Always be on the side of justice, of course, but your vigilante side keeps gnawing at your heels and tells you to make it a swift justice for all.
6. Bed
Getting a good night's sleep is one of the most enjoyable and blissful sensations you can have. The only time it becomes a problem is when you do not want it to happen. That project that is due sooner than you know it sneaks up on you and your spending sleepless nights, and more than you should, to complete it. Sleep no longer is an adversary, it is the enemy you live and work against. If only you could be permanently nocturnal.
7. Gas station.
You are driving along and the gas gauge is inching its way closer and closer until it can cover the letter "E." A pit stop at the gas station is needed but oh so annoyingly inevitable. If you were a car manufacturer, all cars would be engineered with technology that makes them run on air. The next upgrade will flight, but you know it takes baby steps.
8. Reunions.
Family is important but so is your sanity. Old friends from school reenter your life but their company does not feel the same. How many of them remember your name? How many of their names do you remember? You only see them maybe twice a year at the most, and both your memories should be solid after all these years, but the awkward get-together and holiday visits can grow on you in overwhelming vacation planning ways.
9. Apartment.
You could have your own functional and lovely apartment. Nothing is wrong with the interior, furnishings, or amenities at all. It is the return that gets to you that is so tedious that your apartment becomes everyone else's apartment. The only escape is to visit another apartment, to make you homesick again and forget how sick of home you were in the first place.
10. Out in public.
To have perfect privacy without the interference of the outside world or the inside world would be a miracle. There is no avoiding the foot traffic or the face-to-face encounters of the public eye. You only get so much me time before you have to forfeit it to construct your social life again. Being human is hard but not impossible.
Going places is half the battle.
5 Respectful And Empowering Ways To Handle Rejection
Not everyone will like you, but not everyone has to.
You work hard, you do the right thing, and the inevitable happens. Someone comes along and begins to give you a backhanded compliment, or if you have the misfortune, a backhanded comment. You are left with a bad taste in your mouth and your day starts to turn sour. When people belittle you and your efforts, here are five respectful and empowering ways to sweeten those moments of rejection.
1. Never give someone a reason to not like you.
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People will say what they want and think what they want, no matter the subject or person of choice. It will not matter who you are or what you do, someone or another manages to pay you their two cents. You have to remember, you did not give them reasons to justify their words or actions towards you. These people who exhibit unwarranted thoughts about you are just another drop in the ocean. They do not define your good intentions or self-worth. They are not for you and you need not place any investigation or worry into the mystery of why they do not like you. You do not have to reason with them any further. Simply look forward to the people who care to be curious and open-minded about you.
2. Kill them with kindness.
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The dead push up daisies, but you plant the seed. Some people will smile proudly knowing they have said something cruel or disheartening to get a rise out of you but look at this as an opportunity. Every moment is a chance for you to choose how you react. Ten percent of life is what happens to you, it is out of your control. Ninety percent of life is what you do about it. Use your words to encourage, not discourage, civil discourse. Say what matters and say it with an honest purpose. State your case and let them respond how they will; you cannot control others, but you can control yourself. Be a good example others have yet to show themselves.
3. Turn the "No's" into a "Yes."
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The poet Sylvia Plath had this to say about rejection: "I love my rejection slips. They show me I try." She was talking about the process of writing literary submissions for publication, but her attitude still stands. This is the mindset it takes to find the success you want out of life. Despite all the people that deny you and your work, there are people that see potential and promise in you. It does not matter how many people say "No" to you. What does matter is the number of times you can get back to work and look forward to that one "Yes." You are working for the "Yes's" in your life. Forget the dream-killers and eye-rollers, they lack the hope and drive you have in what you do. They do not do what you do and do not do it like you do. For every "No" there is a "Yes."
4. Let your work speak for you.
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Sometimes no matter how endearing your elevator pitch sounds or how carefully crafted your resume is, people still find fault where there might not even be any. Your accomplishments are your own and that is something to take pride in. Of course, the right amount of pride separates you from the rest and for the better. Pride and confidence must not become virtues or vices that exceed who you are. The work you put out is an extension of who you are and no one can take that away from you. Work speaks for itself and yourself best, so focus on your goals and let your results stand in for your words people did not value. Your best is rarely seen at the moment of inspiration, usually after the final stroke of the brush has wet the canvas. It is your goal to show that stalwart work ethic in good times and in bad.
5. Your process will protect you.
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Keep working. Rule out the distractions and the doubts, the fears, and the flippant fools. Know that your process will save you in trying times. Work against all odds. At some point, things turn even and add up, but you have to be dedicated and diligent. Your sights are seen only through your eyes and your need is to show others what you see. Until then, your skill, your talent, will be honed with consistency. Show up to your work even when you have not been hit with inspiration. The Kodak moment will present itself through your process. Due diligence is the price of success. Eyes on the prize and nose to the grindstone. No one knows your work better than you.
Be the trampoline that bends the will of gravity-like rejection long enough until you can fly.