Rejection to Acceptance

by Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief

Rejection! We’ve all dealt with it from time to time. No one likes being rejected. It feels personal, and we take it personally.

To experience this can be awful so it is important that we don’t let it consume us. It’s okay to look at it from each angle but then you must come to terms with how you will allow it to color your thoughts.

When I was in my teens I experienced rejection from some girls in school, and it certainly hurt but my dad told me something important. He said, “Not everyone is going to like you or want to be your friend but it is imperative that you like you and you be a friend to you.” I took his words to heart. For the most part, I’ve tried to live my life that way.

It showed me not everyone would like what I do, would like the decisions I make, like what I write, or even like who my friends are. Therefore, I had to make sure I approved and liked what I did, decisions I made, what I wrote and who my friends were.  This can and does sometimes separate you away from the crowd, but it is more important to be true to yourself and do what is right.

Rejection does occur in life; there's no way around it, but it is just one more step in the growing process on the road to maturity that helps us learn to accept ourselves.