When Failure and Rejection Align

Maybe the cliche’s are true

I’ve heard it said that you have to experience life in order to write about it. As a writer for the last 12 or so years, I have so many pieces in my google drive that I’ve written about. Experiences, thoughts, world orders, feelings, wishes, failures — you name it, I’ve probably written about it.

The irony of that, is that no one wishes or desires to experience emotions that don’t feel good, but in order to write and learn and evolve, we have to go through those things that feel terrible — like failure. And rejection.

I asked myself as I wrote this, whether rejection and failure are synonyms. By definition, failure is the omission of expected or required action. Rejection refers to the shame, sadness, or grief people feel when they are not accepted by others OR the dismissal of a proposal or idea.

I think rejection can feel like failure and failure can feel like rejection.

As an artist, I’m very familiar with rejection. There are the age old stories of how writers and artists boast about their rejections because rejection means you’re trying. Cardi B recently did a live about how many times she was told no in her early career. She talked about how none of the rappers signed to her label wanted to do a feature with her. She’s successful now, but it wasn’t…