“Stay faithful to yourself-and fly closer to the sun”: what I learned from 50 years of rejection | Health and well-being

GBeing rejected, especially if this happens several times, is not a great experience. Someone refuses you coldly, gives you a difficult pass and tells you: “No”. I work as a writer, so I am not unrelated to rejection. I started to offer stories ideas and submit manuscripts 50 years ago, when I obtained my university diploma. During this period, I saw two rejected novels, as well as proposals for non-fiction books, news and many proposals for articles. In the past 20 years, since I largely turned to personal trials and articles of opinion, I was even more rejected. During a typical week, I receive a rejection every few days, more than 100 times a year. The refusals accumulated during my career are counted by the thousands. Now I should have a doctorate in rejection.

So, is this feature a rant for me? Far from it. Because finally, at 73, I accepted rejection.

How did I manage this? How did I equip myself to take a backhand in my stride-or even ignore it?

A little context: at this stage of my life, almost everyone, including their distant cousin, gave me its green light. I have never taken into account my victories-perdies ratio-it would be deeply discouraging.

A typical example: recently, a newspaper editor with which I work rejected 20 submissions in a row before saying: “OK, I will accept it”, in one. In 2016, no less than 50 books of books opposed their veto to my memory proposal before one of them gave me the green light. A few years later, 25 literary agents declined a proposal for a non-fiction book. An editor to whom I frequently submitted work became so frustrated by my submissions that she asked me a question that no publisher had never asked me before: would I send her my potential guest tests less often? Say, once a month?

In their twenties, at the start of my career, all the refusals stung me. I took them personally. It was not only my work that was rejected, in my opinion, but I as a person.

Barely a manuscript was rejected than I was starting to undergo what I called the “seven stages of rejection”:

First the shock. How could it happen? How could these people be blind to my talent?

Second, denial. Surely have you rejected the bad person? It must be an administrative error.

Third, dismissal. What does one of you know? Who appointed you to rule on my work? You are stupid and your publication stinks. I reject your refusal.

Fourth, anger at those who have rejected me, followed by anger against myself. Why am I doing this? Why do I let myself go to these fronds and arrows of foreigners who make verdicts on my work? Am I masochistic or martyr?

Fifthly, bargaining (preferably generously seasoned with illusion). What will need to convince you to recognize Me as a unique talent in a generation?

Sixth, depression. I’m not good. In addition, I will never be good.

So it crossed me in the thirties, quarantine and fifties.

Of course, I was in excellent company. The accounts of writers whose work was initially rejected are legion. Herman Melville Moby-Dick. Frankenstein de Mary Shelley. The Dublinois of James Joyce. Vladimir Nabokov’s lolita. Joseph Heller’s wrestling. Almost all renowned writers were initially rejected. If they managed to overcome the rejection, then maybe I could too. Michael Jordan was excluded from the basketball team of his high school. Most American presidents in the past 60 years have already lost elections: Lyndon B Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Sylvester Stallone believes that his script for Rocky and his candidacy to become the film star have been refused 1,500 times. “I take the rejection as if someone sounded a bugle in my ear to wake up and set off, rather than beating,” he said.

Then, while I was waiting for sixty and sixty, I entered the seventh stage of the rejection. Acceptance. Now I understand better the many reasons why someone says no. To start, an editor may recently published a similar article, or already have one in preparation, or simply consider something in the same direction that another contributor could continue.

Or, in a less promising way, my argument has a limited interest. Or the publisher thinks that I do not have the references or the stature necessary to do the trick. Or it is no longer on the market for the products I sell. Or I was too distracted and I read my memory too quickly to appreciate the many merits.

Go ahead, call it a revelation. Everything can be rejected, and for any reason, and you can practically do anything about it. Some reasons of rejection forever escape your control.

Others are inside. Let’s be realistic, my arguments and my submissions can sometimes be poorly designed. They may lack relevance and resonance, or that the point that I find it difficult to articulate is insufficiently dramatized. Or I sorely lack originality. Or maybe something in my punctuation, especially the semicolons, was offensive.

The fact is that, despite all my years of effort and rejection, I managed to be largely published. I wrote two books – my first when I was 51, my second, a memoir, at 65 years old – and more than 1,000 articles and trials. These articles were published in large and small publications, in local, national and global newspapers and magazines. My first opinion article was published in the New York Times when I was 26 – and I have now contributed to this publication, among others, for five decades.

However, no bestsellers, no dedication sessions at Barnes & Noble, no appearances in Oprah, no Ted Talks, no literary prices, no pulitzers, no Nobel and no presidential medal of freedom around my neck. But I can more easily accept the rejection at 73 years old, because my successes, certainly modest, have damaged the tremors of my many rejections. I can allow myself to be philosophical on this subject now.

Rejection can be instructive, but only if you listen to what he is trying to teach you. Otherwise, you will probably continue to accept rejection in an erroneous way. So what lessons have I learned?

Here is my advice. First, review your rejected arguments. I mean, examine it as if you were a monk transcribing the ancient Greek in a medieval scriptorium. You can see it again and find out how to improve it. If you decide that your idea is always up to it, it’s great. Send it to another person, probably more insightful, for a second opinion. Recycling maintains your hopes. If, however, as I do too often, you find that your idea leaves something to be desired, modify it or even refound it completely. I sometimes realize, to my great dismay, that my opening belongs to the end, or vice versa, or a variant of it.

Basically, rejection can be of service. This forces you to deal with objective reality. You discover, perhaps unlike your long-standing expectations, that a whole universe exists outside your head and that the opinions of others can have as much importance as yours. The market spoke, as was the voters during an election, and its decision deserves a certain respect.

Rejection can also strengthen your mind. This overturns you and challenges you to get back on your feet. You learn humility because nothing inspires better humility than being completely humiliated. This can also strengthen your determination, as the more you are rejected, the more you could strive to break through. Rejection teaches you the art of resilience, the ability to bounce back after a failure, an essential attribute to the maintenance of an entrepreneurial state of mind.

In any case, I do not recommend rejection as desired result or as a springboard to success. But in the best of scenarios, rejection can encourage us to remain faithful to ourselves and get closer to the sun. Rejection can encourage you to believe that not only can you do better, but that you should also do better, that you have to do better and that you will do better. “Rejections,” said the novelist winner of the Nobel Prize winner Saul Bello, “teach a writer to trust his own judgment and say in the depths of his heart:” To the devil you “.

And this is how I now accept rejection. Admittedly, it is easier for me to admit my vulnerability and to rejoice in my new change of opinion than for writers of several decades younger than me.

Here is what I said to my daughter, Caroline, when she started her career as an independent writer at the end of the twenties – but I think that this advice would apply to the way in which each of us chooses to live our everyday life. “Rejection is difficult,” I wrote. “What I do – and what you can do – is quite simple. First, write as well and as faithfully as possible. It is always the number one priority. Second, write about what matters to you and give it the time it needs to ferment. Third, stay productive – the more you create, the better your prospects. Always have something in development, that you have noticed, Really written it.

If I learned something from getting older – and I had to learn something now – it is because life can be a yes or a no. So, the sooner you will learn to adapt to no, the sooner you will have a chance to respond to the yes.