By: Gowri Somayajula

Rejection sucks. Whether from a job or that dream internship, or even from college it’s hard to pick your feet off the ground again, especially after convincing yourself that you would be the perfect student for your dream university. And that’s the hardest part, telling yourself that despite this rejection, despite this devastating news, you are in fact worth more than the email you have just received. I’ve been rejected in life. By clubs, by internships, by my dream college, by things I thought I held dear to me. But life goes on. Life goes on with every step and every day passing by the pain eventually dulls away. But that doesn’t make it easy in the moment. 

Here are things that I do when I feel at my worst: 

• Remind myself of the successes I have accomplished: reminding myself of  the challenges I have faced in my life, the times when I have stood up for myself and strove to be a better person. Having reminders of what my hardwork and perseverance can achieve reminds me that there are good days that come after the bad. And somehow, I ended up at Berkeley, which was the perfect academic fit for me. I am thankful for the rejections that I have faced in life, because without them I wouldn’t be the person I am today. 
• Doing a noncompetitive leisure activity outside of school and academics. Driving ourselves into this rat-race like competition, we almost forget that to move forward in life, we must breathe. Whatever hobby you find yourself doing in your passing free time, remember that this is who you are, and the decision of a company cannot change this. I personally found playing instruments or going to the gym liberating. It was hard not to constantly criticize myself for perceived flaws (as I am sure most of you can relate to) but these flaws do not define me.
• Apply to other organisations. I am not going to deceive you: this one hurts the most. Applying to things after a rejection might just bring up trepidations and self-doubt. Why bother to apply if rejection is the expected outcome anyways. It’s because we can apply to other things. I don’t know why but it suddenly hit me that  we cannot let ourselves be brought down by the hurdles that life throws. If we do not push ourselves to evolve, we will never grow. In Lord of The Rings, the Elves are an elite but beautiful race, who never age and never die. And it is because of this that they do not evolve. They stay frozen in time, living in their homes rarely straying far. They did not evolve because they had all the time in the world. As humans, we do not have this blessing. Life is short, painfully short and it made me realize that it’s not worth just patiently waiting around for opportunities to be handed to you. Carpe Diem.
  
  

 Like most pains, this too will weaken over time, and eventually pass.