Pulled this one straight from the wayback machine. Seems like it might be helpful in this time of the Great Resignation. Dear beautiful friend who just received a rejection letter, I know that you are feeling down. Way down. That you are looking at the long road of your career and thinking that this rejection is a significant
I will confess that I am generally of the Anne Lamott school of rejection response-- overeat something salty and fatty and sugary and grumble about how the people who rejected me are awful people who probably leave the cap off the toothpaste tube and secretly wish they could kick babies to see how far they would fly.
I do both things-- the eating and the grumbling-- until I become sick of myself (which takes less and less time as I get older) and then I take myself out for a walk, either somewhere in the woods or somewhere with an expansive view. Sometimes I'm still grumbling while I'm walking, but eventually, the world intrudes. I notice the trees that don't give a damn about my rejection or the sun that shines on me regardless of how petty and hateful I am temporarily and I start to breathe again. I ask for a little mercy from the folks who rejected me. Not for rejecting me, which I still think makes them kind of SUCK, but for whatever hatefulness I sent in their personal direction for doing something to me that so wasn't personal.
Thank you from someone who has endured plenty of rejection over the years, most recently from two Ivy League divinity schools, which I was *convinced* would fulfill a divinely-whispered idea that could have never come from me to begin with and felt so much like a calling I could burst.
The world needs more angels who send letters like this. After my divinity rejections I received one. And two friends, in conversations I will never forget, responded to the news by saying YOU DO NOT NEED ANY INSTITUTIONS TO DO THIS WORK.
They showed no hesitation or doubt. Their voices, now joined by yours, reverberate in my head as application season approaches again. :)
I'm once again indebted to Courtney for a characteristically eloquent expression directed at how one tries to cope with heartbreaking rejection. This experience came to me often in my academic career, and then watching it happen to innumerable students at Barnard when, however highly qualified, they were rejected by various professional schools. I'd try to console them in words as powerful as Courtney's and I only wish that mine were as wise and perhaps touched them deeply as I'm moved by these.
I know that this will sound pedantic or abstract, yet I must add to Courtney's message a criticism of the particular version of intense competition that our version of capitalism fosters. I'm too far to the left not to place a lot blame on the economic system that this country has created and continues to foster. If the current gross inequality of wealth were being redressed, then I'd feel more optimistic, but the opposite is happening, as it continues to increase. Predictably, then, as an aged professor, I recommend sources that I find useful: Noam Chomsky, Richard D. Wolff, and Judith Butler, especially her recent "The Force of Nonviolence" that implores us to think out of the box by conceiving a revolutionary "new imaginary" through radical collective nonviolent action.
Once again, many thanks to Courtney for this inspiring message. Peace, DD
I tried something new the last time I got rejected from something I really wanted. I let myself be sad. I granted myself permission to feel all the bad feelings, for however long it took.
Historically, I try to look on the bright side to avoid the discomfort of feeling, well, anything bad about it at all.
This time, before I rushed to tell my husband or best friend or Mom why it was actually a good thing I had gotten rejected because X,Y,or Z... I took a headphone-less walk around the block, shed a few tears, told myself it royally sucked, and let myself talk shit about the hiring committee in my head.
The sadness and disappointment feelings faded much faster than I anticipated, because, well, you know, I let them out.
I spent a couple of fraught years on the academic job market in the 1990s before landing a job, and then I spent many more years on academic search committees for humanities faculty positions. We always had 100 or more highly qualified candidates for each opening, and it was simply heart-breaking to see the dreams of so many committed people crushed. You have beautifully captured the pain and also the fact that rejection usually has nothing to do with the candidate.
I will confess that I am generally of the Anne Lamott school of rejection response-- overeat something salty and fatty and sugary and grumble about how the people who rejected me are awful people who probably leave the cap off the toothpaste tube and secretly wish they could kick babies to see how far they would fly.
I do both things-- the eating and the grumbling-- until I become sick of myself (which takes less and less time as I get older) and then I take myself out for a walk, either somewhere in the woods or somewhere with an expansive view. Sometimes I'm still grumbling while I'm walking, but eventually, the world intrudes. I notice the trees that don't give a damn about my rejection or the sun that shines on me regardless of how petty and hateful I am temporarily and I start to breathe again. I ask for a little mercy from the folks who rejected me. Not for rejecting me, which I still think makes them kind of SUCK, but for whatever hatefulness I sent in their personal direction for doing something to me that so wasn't personal.
Your friend is so lucky to have you.
Thank you from someone who has endured plenty of rejection over the years, most recently from two Ivy League divinity schools, which I was *convinced* would fulfill a divinely-whispered idea that could have never come from me to begin with and felt so much like a calling I could burst.
The world needs more angels who send letters like this. After my divinity rejections I received one. And two friends, in conversations I will never forget, responded to the news by saying YOU DO NOT NEED ANY INSTITUTIONS TO DO THIS WORK.
They showed no hesitation or doubt. Their voices, now joined by yours, reverberate in my head as application season approaches again. :)
I'm once again indebted to Courtney for a characteristically eloquent expression directed at how one tries to cope with heartbreaking rejection. This experience came to me often in my academic career, and then watching it happen to innumerable students at Barnard when, however highly qualified, they were rejected by various professional schools. I'd try to console them in words as powerful as Courtney's and I only wish that mine were as wise and perhaps touched them deeply as I'm moved by these.
I know that this will sound pedantic or abstract, yet I must add to Courtney's message a criticism of the particular version of intense competition that our version of capitalism fosters. I'm too far to the left not to place a lot blame on the economic system that this country has created and continues to foster. If the current gross inequality of wealth were being redressed, then I'd feel more optimistic, but the opposite is happening, as it continues to increase. Predictably, then, as an aged professor, I recommend sources that I find useful: Noam Chomsky, Richard D. Wolff, and Judith Butler, especially her recent "The Force of Nonviolence" that implores us to think out of the box by conceiving a revolutionary "new imaginary" through radical collective nonviolent action.
Once again, many thanks to Courtney for this inspiring message. Peace, DD
I tried something new the last time I got rejected from something I really wanted. I let myself be sad. I granted myself permission to feel all the bad feelings, for however long it took.
Historically, I try to look on the bright side to avoid the discomfort of feeling, well, anything bad about it at all.
This time, before I rushed to tell my husband or best friend or Mom why it was actually a good thing I had gotten rejected because X,Y,or Z... I took a headphone-less walk around the block, shed a few tears, told myself it royally sucked, and let myself talk shit about the hiring committee in my head.
The sadness and disappointment feelings faded much faster than I anticipated, because, well, you know, I let them out.
I spent a couple of fraught years on the academic job market in the 1990s before landing a job, and then I spent many more years on academic search committees for humanities faculty positions. We always had 100 or more highly qualified candidates for each opening, and it was simply heart-breaking to see the dreams of so many committed people crushed. You have beautifully captured the pain and also the fact that rejection usually has nothing to do with the candidate.