The sting of rejection can be sharper than the prick of a bee’s stinger, but we always have at our disposal the antidote to prevent rejection’s sting in the first place: The magic salve of choice, our unequivocal freedom to choose what we want and the meaning we assign to any situation.
So often rejection is the result of the Ego feeling bruised because we aren’t chosen. From early on, it’s almost an automatic reflex to want to be chosen. Whether anxiously lining up at school while captains pick players for the kickball teams, eagerly checking the mailbox for a college acceptance letter or anticipating a new suitor’s call, our desire to be chosen is like second nature.
When the Ego’s subliminal plea of, “Ooh, me, me, please!” is answered affirmatively, we triumphantly equate it with being good enough, but if we aren’t chosen, then we dejectedly assume it must mean something’s wrong with us or someone else is better.
But the Ego’s logic is inherently flawed because it doesn’t consider whether we want to be chosen, instead focusing singularly on whether we’re chosen.
When a friend recently lamented that she hadn’t heard from someone she’d dated a couple of times, I asked if he was everything she wanted in a partner, and she looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. Why, she asked?
Because, I suggested, unless you’re genuinely interested, does it really matter that he hasn’t been in touch? Have you considered whether you truly like and want to hear from him instead of automatically defaulting to “Why hasn’t he called?”
When she insisted, “But I want to be one who gets to choose!” I urged her to see that she is the one who gets to choose. In fact, she’s the only one who gets to choose whether to make a big deal of it.
We can’t control the choices someone else makes, but we can avoid unnecessarily burning up emotional BTUs by taking the time to check in with ourselves on what truly matters.
When we learn to set our own compass to what we would truly love and what we would choose, it displaces the power of someone else’s choice and returns it to its rightly place with ourselves.
We’re apt to be pleasantly surprised by the wheat we find when the shaft of someone else’s choices are stripped away. It doesn’t matter what others choose. What do you choose to claim the authentic story of your life?
