It doesn't feel good. It causes a pain in your stomach that slowly crawls its way around your body up to your eyes until they begin welling with tears. The bad feeling sticks with you for days, no matter how small of an issue you think it should be.

I'm not talking about the series finale of How I Met Your Mother, I'm talking about something much less important — rejection.

It's happened to everyone who wasn't born into the upper class (kidding, kind of), and it sucks. Along with sucking, rejection makes us all want to make it seem like it's a rare occasion so that our peers don't look down on us, even though everyone involved knows we're lying.

It happens to everyone, and it happens all the time, so I thought I'd come clean about some of the times I've been rejected (by jobs and stuff, not by people — that would be a little too painful).

The first job I ever applied for was to work at the now out-of-business Macy's in my hometown. Perhaps I wasn't hired because they were on a rapid downward tumble into bankruptcy, but I digress.

I got home from the interview and I was sure that I'd nailed it. I'm an extremely awkward person but in a really funny, laughing-at-myself kind of way, and I could tell that it really showed. But later that evening, I got an email saying they decided not to hire me.

I was baffled and upset and wondering why they would screw me over like that. I was a great candidate! I had done such a good job pretending to care about their company! I really wanted to make money!

I didn't let my family or friends know how upset I was because I put in a lot of effort to never show emotion toward them, but I was really offended. I thought of myself as a person who deserved that job. And maybe that was the problem.

After going off to college and seeing what hardworking people my age actually look like, I realized something: I am not entitled to anything. I was and am lucky for everything that I have.

I'm lucky that it wasn't a necessity for me to get that retail job. I'm lucky that I don't have to work any paying jobs (although it would be cool to get paid for some of this) just to get through college. And I hope whoever did get that job earned what they needed to get by.

My most recent rejection was for an internship at Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine. To be honest, I'm not usually the outdoorsy type so I probably would've crashed and burned at this one anyway, but I was heartbroken to receive that rejection letter.

But then I remembered: someone else got the internship, and they're gonna rock it. The world isn't about me, and it's not about you, and it's not about any one person. The world just is.

So when you get rejected, think of it as a learning opportunity. Yeah, that sounds cliche, but it helps ease the pain of inferred inadequacy. Remember that you don't really deserve anything, and it'll make you work harder.

I'm privileged, and I'm painfully aware of that. A lot of the time, people equate their privilege with entitlement. Don't be one of those people, and I won't either.