Not our problem, not our fault

The secret to dealing with rejection is keeping perspective.

When you’re denied or dismissed, the most important thing to remember is, most people don’t know what they want. Or they do, and they’re flat out wrong.

The truth is, human beings, even smart ones, generally aren’t good at knowing what they want. Our species is notoriously lousy at predicting what will make us happy. And so, when somebody slams the door in our face, we have to assume it’s mostly a reflection of them, not us. Their preferences are ambiguous and in no way a reflection of our value, merely their own indecision.

I remember interviewing for a writing position at successful, fast growing startup with a stellar reputation. The opportunity was exciting on paper, but once I started talking with a few members of the marketing team, my opinion changed.

Because all of their questions were so administrative. They only seemed to care about workflow management, internal documentation, setting expectations and appeasing stakeholders. Of the people that I interviewed with, not a single one of them asked about the creative process, content ideas or editorial leadership.

It was the strangest feeling. Not what I expected at all. Three video interviews into the hiring, and the company left a sour taste in my mouth.

All I could think to myself was, wow, working for these guys doesn’t seem like it would be a fulfilling environment for a creative person. This company clearly is not running a marketplace of ideas, they’re covering their assess and cutting through red tape all day.

About a week later, I got my rejection from the recruiter who validated my concern. He said the marketing team I interviewed with was, get this, pivoting their direction with the role.

They thought they needed to hire a writer, but after talking to several candidates, they decided to head in a different direction for what they now realized was more of a project management role.

Yep, I knew it. This company doesn’t know what they want.

Which, by the way, is fine. I don’t expect people to know what they want, much less a billion dollar organization that employs thousands of people to know what it wants.

But it’s an important distinction to make in the face of rejection.

When somebody who doesn’t know what they want says that they don’t want you, who’s accounting for taste? How could you possibly take something like that personally?

Clearly, this decision has nothing to do with the rejectee’s value, and everything to do with the rejector’s inability to understand their desires.

This scenario plays out in the dating world all the time. Single people post a profile that says, just seeing what’s out there, seeing how it goes, not sure what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I find it.

Again, this is totally fine and we shouldn’t fault people for not knowing who they are and what they want.

But if a potential mate ghosts us, or if they straight up say to our face that we’re not their type, then there’s no reason to spiral into despair. This rejection is their problem, not ours.

Or as my mentor lovingly says, screw em, their loss.

How do you keep perspective when you hear no? What universal aspects of human behavior helps you realize just how not personal rejection is?

Of course, there is a fine line here. Apple famously launched their culture defining line of computers, music devices and phones based on the founder’s assumption that customers don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Jobs said it in his biography:

I never rely on market research, since my task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

That’s fair enough considering the man’s achievements. There will always be innovators to define and dominate categories in this way.

But it’s important to approach the human misunderstanding of desire from a place of compassion, not supremacy. Just because someone doesn’t know what they want, and we do, doesn’t make us better than them. We haven’t reached enlightenment while they’re still stuck in the dirt.

Sure, we might have greater awareness as a result of our genetics, years of reflection or plain old luck. The goal is to stay on our side of the street. To separate what’s ours and what’s theirs.

Listen, if somebody is confused about their needs and desires, and the collateral damage of their uncertainty means us getting rejected, that’s on them. Not our problem, not our fault.

Understandably, it feels like an attack. But that’s only because people are scared of ambiguity, and they’re soothing themselves, and we just happen to be caught in the blast radius.

Believe me, there are far worse feelings in the human experience than being rejected by somebody who doesn’t know what they want.

For example, do you know anyone during the pandemic who lost their sense of taste?

Talk about a bad feeling. Covid, as you recall, had symptoms including hypogeusia, or a partial loss of taste functions of the tongue. People who contracted the virus developed an inability to detect sweetness, sourness, bitterness and saltiness.

Now, according to a recent study in a top medical journal, doctors estimate that only three of people who experience a loss of the sense of taste have true ageusia.

That sounds awful, no doubt. At the same time, if someone with covid who had malfunctioning taste buds came over for dinner and said that your lasagna tasted like dogshit and perfume, would you take it personally?

Of course not. Because this person has lost their taste functions. Their taste is unreliable.

Same goes for the rest of life. In a world where most people don’t know what they want, we have to keep perspective in moments of rejection.

Otherwise there will perpetually be a sour taste in our mouths.

If people don’t like your work, why would you assume they have good taste?