When I was in middle school I nicknamed myself “The Queen of Rejection”. I had been getting rejected from a lot of things, and I felt a need to make it into something positive. I’ve experienced rejection a few times, and each time I learned from my mistakes.

The first time I really felt hurt from being rejected was in sixth grade when I tried out for the drill team, and I didn’t make it. For weeks, I wondered why I hadn’t been good enough, and it really lowered my self-esteem because I had been taking ballet classes at the time, and I felt very confident with my skills. The main reason I felt very upset was because I had an interest in parades, and drill team performed in them. However, I didn’t let rejection stop me from being in parades. I wasn’t in band, so I had to come up with another method to march in a parade. That’s when I signed up for the bagpipe program at school. I went to FMS, and there was a bagpipe program where you could march in parades without a fear of dragging down competition scores while still having all the fun. I signed up because I wasn’t going to let my drill team rejection stop me from doing what I really wanted to do. So through hard work, I learned how to play the bagpipes in 9 months and was able to march in a parde within one year.

Another time I got rejected was in seventh grade when there were seating auditions within the school orchestra. Ultimately, my goal was to sit in the front so I could be noticed by the music teacher. I had a private teacher at the time because I was playing violin and that was a competitive instrument to play in orchestra. I believed I was rather good because I had heard the other students auditioning, and they sounded worse than me. I expected to be one of the better students because my audition had sounded good to me, but reflecting back on it now, I don’t think it was. When results came out, I was extremely surprised. My name wasn’t announced, and one of my friends, a total violin newbie, got one of the good seats. Of course, I was upset because I hadn’t gotten the seat that I wanted and believed I deserved. I was stuck in the back with all of the bad people, and I went home to complain to my parents. They said I didn’t sound good when I played, and they weren’t surprised that I was seated in the back. My confidence went down. I was very angry, so I had to use the negative emotions from rejection to power myself and to become better. I began to practice more, and at the beginning of eighth grade year, I got a seat near the front. This motivated me to practice harder, so the next year I would get an even better seat.

In the end, I believe that rejection isn’t all that bad. It does make you feel terrible and worthless, but instead of wallowing in those feelings, you should use them as motivation to become better. Rejection isn’t a reason to give up; it’s a reason to work harder. It builds up character and is going to happen a lot. If people give up every time they were rejected, they would be even more worthless than they feel because they aren’t taking any action to become better. Since this is my first year in high school, I plan on using these experiences to an advantage. I know I’m going to get rejected from a lot of things, so I should use what I’ve learned over the years to make the most of high school.  I’ve already been rejected from some things this year, but feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to do anything because the past is already set in stone, but the future can still be changed. It’s time to move on from rejection and look towards the future.