REJECTIONS: OUR CONNECTING DOTS

 

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear

to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”

Sylvester Stallone

 

Steve Jobs, in his inspiring speech at the Stanford University’s graduation ceremony said, “You cannot connect the dots looking forward; we can only connect them looking backward.” He was talking about some of the lowest moments in his life – the times, when he felt rejected, defeated, betrayed and lost. He was encouraging the young graduates not to look for instant success in life… to believe in their dreams, pursue them and learn from all the painful moments – and, yes, look back at those ‘dots’ and connect them in order to move forward in life.

That advise makes lots of sense to every aspiring soul on this planet. It’s priceless!

Success seldom comes – and should not come - to any of us on a ready platter. Getting rejected ought to be a prerequisite for success. Rejection from others is the true test of our claim to success:  Are we absolutely clear and definite about our goals? Do we possess the burning desire and dogged determination to pursue them? Do we possess sufficient perseverance and imaginative power? Are we willing to work in the spirit of cooperation?

The more people say ‘No’ to us, the more determined we should become. The more they reject us, the more fire we should light in our bellies.

“Its not how hard you hit,” Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) drills into his young son’s frightened heart, “it’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

Every so-called ‘successful person’ in this world can testify to this fact.

When I look back at my own life, I can clearly see so many dots and connect them. I wish to share one such dot in this post…

The year was 1981… I was 23, brimming with Napoleon Hill’s success philosophy – ‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”… I burning with desire to achieve my chief aim… I had grasped the importance of forming a ‘Mastermind alliance’ with like-minded people. So, powered by this newly-acquired wisdom, I had led a small team of my fellow-dreamers into the packed cabin of a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. This educated gentleman, who had worked his way up in life, was kind enough to give us a hearing… “What is that you guys want to achieve? What will be your USP?” he asked us. I was the one to answer that piercing question… I spoke about a center of excellence – a school for helping young ones build up their self-confidence and develop public speaking skills etc., etc.” This much seemed went down well with the gentleman. But, then, as I said, I was just a raw, untested – and newly-migrated – young man in that cabin. Yes, a lot immature, overconfident and brash as well. I said something, which at hindsight, I should not have said that afternoon before someone who knew the world a hundred times better than my boyish-self did. I boasted, “No other place in Bombay is doing what we have planned to do.”

That was the last nail on the coffin… “Young man, you have a very long way to go. There are scores of people around you doing excellently what you are dreaming to do now… I myself and my children have done Personality Development from good old Indo-American Society. You better wake up, grow up… and work your way up with lots of patience.”

We left that cabin crestfallen. Certainly, at 23, I was unable to see this rejection – this ‘dot’ – and connect it, looking forward.

Today, I am able to. I can look back and see how beautifully these dots are connected… How they test us: the clarity of our goals, the intensity of our desire to achieve them – the determination, persistence, imagination, planning, the spirit of cooperation and many other lessons Napoleon Hill had imparted into my young heart. Above all, rejections are the invaluable test of our humility to correct our mistakes and learn from them… grow through them.

So, looking back on these connecting dots, I ask this question to myself: Have I achieved what I wanted to at that raw-and-rough age of 23?

“Over the years, I have come to realize,” said Henri J.M. Nouwen, “that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection.”

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic.: pixabay

 

Video: Mohammed Al-qassem/Ricky Balboa