Complaint: Rejection Stings

How do you turn that frown upside down when you find out you've been rejected for something you wanted to do, but the people rejecting you didn't have the moxie to tell you personally?

Because rejection is not easy for anyone, and it's even nastier when you hear about it second hand.

It's nothing tragic or anything. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Self-indulgent, I know.

And my husband's advice to not take it personally is sound and reasonable.

But who said feelings were sound and reasonable? Intellectually, I've got it. Mentally, I feel like I just got stood up on the fourth or fifth date. Here I was thinking things were going along so well with this organization, and then, nothing. Not even a blow off email.

Oh well. It should spur me on to more productive and focused action elsewhere. And if you don't get a job or a gig because something else was better, so what? Somebody somewhere thinks enough of me to hire me to teach; I actually already have two jobs. And of course I could always go back to school (again) to get more credentialed than I already am. But that doesn't sound appealing.

I have these skills, and a great diversity of experience, but that works both for and against me: I'm versatile and experienced, yes, but I'm also specifically for trained for less things than I can competently do. How do you convince someone of your effectiveness without a piece of paper to prove it?

And I'm not short on pieces of paper from higher institutions.

Is the answer more school, or better marketing? I fear it may be the latter.

Which is a challenge, because I've been programmed to believe that marketing is evil.

But selling your skills so you can make a living isn't evil. Personal/professional marketing is okay; vital, I guess, when you get right down to it. Yikes.

It's the selling snow to Inuit marketing that's offensive.

Okay, we've got that cleared up.

Now I just need to pick up my slightly battered ego and find something else to put my energy into.

Good thing I'm so plucky and eclectic.