I got failures and rejection for 6 years: here is how I remain optimistic
The lessons from my life struggles
For six good years, I got nothing but rejection and failure.
- I failed to jumpstart my career in the textile industry owing to personal and situational reasons despite being an outstanding graduate of the field ( I am a textile engineer)
- I failed to pass governmental jobs tests despite studying days in and days out — I even don’t remember the number of times I appeared in these examinations.
- I applied for multiple private sector jobs and got called for an interview only once that followed by rejection.
- I lost all of my friends and social circle because I had no answer to their “what are you doing these days?”, those questions which were usually followed by deep silence.
- I was under strong, self-defeating peer pressure as most of my friends and batchmates moved ahead in their careers and I felt like a loser.
- My grief for the past and anxiety about the future had messed up my sleep schedule and I had become dependent on sleeping pills to escape from my reality for a while.
Sounds too sad and miserable, isn’t it?
The color of your life painting depends upon the attitude you paint it with: given the above circumstances, my life should be nothing but black and grey.
However, I choose to make it colorful and learned some valuable lessons in the process.
As the author of one of my favorite books “Man’s Search For Meaning” Victor Frankl has said it:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
I choose a positive attitude towards my life and my setbacks turned into my biggest assets.
Here are eight factors that played a key role in developing me as a person and in turning my apparent bad luck to my advantage.
- I have a supportive family: Luckily, I was born into a family that value people for their being and not their titles and accolades.
- I choose to look at the positives: being not able to get a regular job means I have plenty of time which I can utilize to develop lucrative skills and find other means of making money i.e. freelancing, and consultation.
- I accidentally got out of the career rat race: I don’t have to worry about the next promotion or portray myself as a success on social media; nature took me out of the disease of external validation and has set me free.
- I got time to pursue my passion: I find my solace in touching the hearts of my readers and bringing value to their lives through my write-ups.
- I become more empathetic: I learned to avoid unnecessary gossip by observing the insensitive comments of people about my career and marriage.
- I learned to remain content with what I have: I have realized that if something is not meant for you, you won’t get it, no matter the amount of effort you put in.
- I became more introspective: Though I spent most of my time within the boundaries of my home, I have got a bigger perspective of life; the career-oriented definition of life appears hollow to me. A happy life, for me, is spent in service of people.
- I became grateful: Despite all of my failures and rejection, I still have the gifts of health, home, food, and income. What else does one want from life?
Some of you may resonate with this article but most of you may not.
I can’t imagine the difficulties of a person who wasn’t lucky enough to be born into a supportive family, or who is struggling with a life-threatening disease.
The point is that we all are tested with one difficulty or another.
It’s human to breakdown,
It’s human to feel cheated and betrayed by life.
But you should learn to rise above those momentary setbacks and try to broaden your horizon by looking at the grand scheme of affairs.
After all, as long as there is life, there is hope.
And hope is a very powerful thing.
It can do wonders for anyone who clings to it.
ANYONE!
Thank you for reading!
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