I failed to publish my book. Here is how the experience provided me with eye-opening lessons about rejection.

I have been rejected in so many ways in the last couple of years. So, I can say I experienced firsthand the sour taste of rejection and the emotional turmoil that followed.

I talked about how badly I was rejected from a TEDx event as a speaker in the last article.

However, I was also rejected when it came to other stuff, such as jobs I have applied to and volunteering experiences I wanted to enroll in.

The worst experience I had when it came to rejection was with a book I really wanted to publish.

Back in 2019, I enrolled in a competition in which around 12 beginner writers gave a sample of their writings to a famous author to be reviewed.

The one with the best sample will be given the opportunity to publish his or her own book without having to pay anything.

It was a golden chance to publish your work without having to bear the financial burden that usually accompanies the process.

Also, you will get more exposure since this famous author will promote your book on his social media accounts.

Generally, to publish here in the Middle East, you have to be a public figure, or essentially, someone others like enough to buy your book.

If not, you will have to pay a lot of money to get your book published.

And of course, back in the day, as a college student, I couldn’t afford the costs of publishing.

When I submitted my sample, I was extremely hopeful that the author would find my work quite impressive enough to be published. I truly wanted things to work out this time.

But it didn’t.

At the time, all the feelings I had were negatively impacting my life. I was in an utter state of despair.

It felt like you had been chasing something for so long that the moment you got close to it, it suddenly disappeared. You had so many hopes and dreams, and out of nowhere, everything got shattered.

Could it be that I thought my sample was good enough and hence I deserve to get my work published, or was it that I liked how exciting this journey seemed to be despite how awfully immature my writings used to be?

I would never know.

Putting this story aside, people my age are struggling with the idea of rejection.

A part of the problem stems from social media and the fast-paced world we are living in. We more often than not see people succeeding at an unprecedented rate.

We see people in their twenties starting their own businesses, and those businesses tend to thrive in no time.

Others get their dream jobs the moment they graduate.

And what is worse is that few people tend to share their failures; few people tend to share how they obviously struggle to figure things out. So, you may come to realize that you might be the only one finding it difficult to sort things out.

So, the moment you get rejected, you take things way more personally than you should.

It is much harder to accept that I could be underqualified for a job or an opportunity when people my age are having blossoming businesses.

People who succeed at an early age are very likely to have had financial support from family or went to better universities. Also, there are bigger opportunities if you live in a developed country than if you are in a developing country.

So others could have more privileges than you do, and that is exactly why you should not be comparing yourself to others.

Everyone has his own route in life, and hence you have got to trust God’s plan along with taking all the necessary actions, and things will hopefully work out quite soon.

I deeply admire this quote, which says that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Most people who have succeeded admit that they were rejected most of the time.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team because they claimed he lacked the skills needed. He is now regarded by many as the best basketball player of all time.

Oprah Winfrey was also fired as an evening news reporter before she actually made it.

That being said, you have to apply 100 times for 100 different jobs, and you will be rejected in most of them before you can get accepted and make things happen.

If you take things personally, you will unfortunately quit too soon.

Here is a link of the article I wrote about my TEDx experience : https://medium.com/@mhmdkhalil287/how-my-experience-as-a-speaker-at-tedx-was-awfully-humiliating-2c3708c5c777