We will all be rejected for something or from something in life.

I’m a voluntary editor for my school’s literary magazine, Ozone Park Journal (here’s the link if you want to check it out: http://www.ozoneparkjournal.org/).  The magazine accepts poetry, fiction, plays, graphic novels, non-fiction and translations.  Last semester was my first semester as one of the editors and I didn’t realize how many submissions we were going to get.  I think we got almost 100 submissions in the fiction category.  I read pages of other people’s work.  We couldn’t publish or accept every fiction submission that we got so we had to reject some very good stories.

Since 16 or so, I think I’ve gotten rejected far more times than I’ve been accepted.  Why do I start with this age?  Well, I was 16 when I started looking for my first job.  The economy wasn’t anywhere as horrible as it is now, but I know that it wasn’t easy for me to land that first job.  From then on, it’s been rejections for jobs, promotions, colleges, graduate programs, teaching opportunities, fellowships, submissions, etc.

When reading one of the many stories that we receive at Ozone Park, I never feel great when it’s time to reject something.  Maybe it’s because I know how hard it is to sit down and write a 20 page story hoping that when you send it off, someone will contact you and say “We love it and we want to publish it!”  That’s hard.  I know what’s it like to spend hundreds of dollars in application fees (money you won’t get back) and write personal statements and compose writing samples to send off to graduate programs only to open the letter and read “I’m sorry to inform you…” .  I know what it’s like to fill out hundreds of job applications and not even get an interview or to have an interview and then not get the job.

I know what rejection feels like.  I don’t like being rejected for anything and I don’t like rejecting anyone for anything but as I writer, I know it happens more often than not, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.  That’s just the way it is.

How do you feel when you’re rejected or when you have to reject someone for something?