The Beauty of Rejection

In life, there are things that we want and the things that we need. What’s the difference? Need is a necessity, something you can’t live without. Want is a desire we crave or seek for personal pleasure. We need food and water to survive and we want to have happiness. Isn't it funny? When we talk about 'happiness' we always say how we want it, never need it.

If you haven’t already read my first blog post, ‘The first time,’ I suggest you go read it before or after this to get an idea of what I’m trying to convey. Whatever your interpretation of my ‘mind’scape’ was, here’s mine and my take on it.

At some point in our lives, we wanted something. It’s human nature to crave feelings of euphoria, to elevate our levels of serotonin. Some people get high, some people turn to sex, others to money, acceptance, food, other forms of drugs such as alcohol, social media, people, materialistic items, attention…the list goes on. We’ve all been in a stage in our lives where we depended on these things for satisfaction. At some point, we felt like we needed these things for a spiritual or outer body high. Perhaps an escape from our brooding reality.

What determines one's happiness is all subjective, the same way beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is the same way happiness in the heart of the expresser.

Happiness in the the heart of the expresser.

The things that bring me joy may not be the same things that bring you joy either, it's each to their own. It's common knowledge that we have more than one emotion, if we are not 'happy' in a particular moment in time, we are able to express other emotions, some impossible to understand. So I suppose we do want to be happy, given it's one of many emotions we can express. We don't need it to survive, but to have a good quality of life. I guess it's one thing we all have in common, we desire to do things that we think or assume will make us happy, in order to have a good quality of life aka living your best life.

Your biggest form of rejection to your self-happiness is not doing anything at all.

Rejection is something that we all fear until we become risk-takers. Your biggest form of rejection to your self-happiness is not doing anything at all. Sure rejection hurts, but imagine not giving yourself the chance to even try and living with regrets? I’m a believer in ‘everything happens for a reason.’ We’ll chase that crush, that dream job, perfection…that perfect Instagram feed (# influencer) because of our desires. However, our desires to emit the feelings they give us will eventually consume our conscious, crossing your mind a thousand times until you get close enough to never having it. The things that belong you come when you least expect it. The greatest treasures are the ones you stumble across, the miracles, not the ones you lose your soul to trying to bargain with the devil.

I've been there, wanting something so bad, having my focus on it, day-dreaming about the moment it would be mine. How proud I would claim it. How I would saviour the moment and cherish it forever. It was my moon. I've had many moons. We chase after things, get so close to having them, an arms reach away, then it just wasn't yours to take. Your circumstances, your self-doubt, your inability to look past the fact that maybe you hadn't really thought about it with the same intensity you felt for it. It looks so perfect for you, others have been blessed to have it so it must be your turn too. Right?

Awe...you poor thing! If I've learnt anything at all is that patience is key. If you're not mentally, emotionally, physically ready to commit to this thing that you want...it isn't yours to take. Not yet anyways. We tend to rush into things that seem ideal without really thinking about it in all perspectives, I mean come on, who has the time? Ain't nobody got time for that!

Well, God does. Whether you are religious or not, whether you believe in God or fate, or karma, the universe, coincidences, everything has a butterfly effect. You don't just jump from the eggs, butter, milk and flour to the cake, no, the ingredients come from something, that came from something. Even when you have the ingredients, you need to work for it, mixing it a certain way, adding different amounts, setting the right temperature and then waiting for your cake to bake without under or over baking it. Wow, now I want cake...

*Mumbles* Now, what was I saying? Ah, yes, you can have and eat your cake too, if you're willing to gather your efforts. The people around you will have different qualities (their ingredients) due to upbringing, circumstances in life, influences and experiences. Some have free-range eggs, some don't. Some have whole wheat flour, others have plain. Some need a little baking powder, some have fancy self-raising flour. Don't compare yourself to people, your cake is not their cake, and your taste is not theirs either. So just because you haven't gathered all of your ingredients yet, doesn't mean you can't have your cake eventually. If you're willing to work on your qualities, improve your surroundings and make sure you don't need any addictive or cheats, you're on your way to having your cake, aka what you want to be your happiness. Sometimes your cake flops or gets rejected because you hadn't used all your ingredients.

It's not just ingredients alone, but how you mix them. You can't just pick and choose how you utilise certain elements of your life. Certain things need more care and attention, things that you may have overlooked. Self-evaluation is also needed. We all have some problems that we refuse to deal with, whether insecurities, opening up to people, self-love or just overcoming trauma, you can't move forward unless you let go of the chain of the past. Easier said than done right? You can't just let go of the past, it made you who you are! Exactly! Embrace it, deal with it and tame it. Make it your b*tch and make it bow down to you.

I'll have a post about that someday. but for now, my only advice is to seek help, professionally or through people you feel comfortable telling. (Feel free to contact me through the contact section ;))

Finally, baking your cake, you see the opportunity to get what you want, it's all about patience now. As much as you can smell how enticing your cake is, how far you've come from chasing your moon, everything has it's own timing. Maybe you weren't even supposed to bake a cake with your ingredients, maybe you were supposed to hand them out to those who needed it, or fried some eggs, or baked some bread. Perhaps you weren't even supposed to be going after the moon but the sun that was always yours.

How do you know what's yours? I have no clue, it's all to do with feelings and how you feel. Something that excites you, brings quality to your life, makes you want to get up every morning and tend to it, makes you want to stand upon the highest mountain and claim it! Something that makes you proud to have or be apart of!

We will all go through life with rejections here and there, trials and errors, it's how we grow, how we gather our ingredients, how we learn and stumble across the unexpected. How we find the beauty in rejection, is how we find the beauty in ourselves and realise that you too, have a purpose and you don't want happiness, you deserve it.

How we find the beauty in rejection, is how we find the beauty in ourselves.

Everything that passes through life is not meant to be ours, explored, yes, but it is only given to which it belongs.