Rejected

i remember applying for jobs during my teen years. i needed to save up money for college and eventually university. so i went around town handing in my cv to any half-decent place i could find. i must've handed out about 20 cv's. and received only one call back. the lady asked me to come in for an interview and i was most certainly excited! my first real job! when i went in for the interview, the lady just sat me down in her office and discussed the wage, hours and benefits. then asked me when i could start. SCORE! that didn't take much effort. i was frankly, quite pleased with myself.

a couple months later, a different company called my house. my sister delivered the message to me: "if you still want a job, call me back". i was ecstatic. i called back and was asked to come in for an interview. so i went in and the boss asked me when i could start. i quickly handed in my notice to my current employer and started my work in my new job.

i left this company after a while because i wanted to concentrate on my studies. but a year or so later, i found myself in financial difficulty yet again. so i posted my cv around again. this time, i gave it to many more companies. a couple of days later, i received a call from one of the companies. the lady asked me if i was still looking and i replied "YES!". she asked me to start the next day. no interview.

since then, i have been promoted a couple times, without interview, alhamdulillah.

now, i will put this story on pause and start another story. but keep this first story in the back of your mind.

recently, i had signed up to a muslim matrimonial website. it was the first time i had done anything like this, so as you can imagine, i was extremely nervous. nevertheless, in my eagarly competitive stride, i set about writing my profile. i hadn't done anything like this before. and had no idea where to start. i could feel my heart beating fast. palms were sweaty. over what?? a little description about myself? surely it's like writing a cv, right? wrong. a LOT more people would be reading it. and they will be extremely critical and shrewd. since they would potentially be spending the rest of their life with me.

after spending an hour writing, then re-writing, i deleted what i had got and decided to start again. i didn't like what i had written about myself. it made me sound like a geek. haha.

then a brilliant idea came to me. the idea was that i was looking at this in totally the wrong angle. surely, this is a competition. now, i understand business and competition. i've got to look at who i am trying to target and make sure that i have what they want (translation: see what girls are after and make sure i have it). then i have to look at my competition and make sure that i am better than them so that i have a better chance of success (translation: check out the boys' profiles and make sure i am better in whatever way is possible - while telling the truth, obviously)

i felt like i was cheating the system. but in the world of business, i've learnt that you have to be tough against the competition!

so after looking at what girls were after (and making sure i put that in my profile if i could offer it) and looking at what the boys have to offer (and making sure i put that in my profile if i could offer it), i managed to compile a profile of myself which i was happy with.

i posted it. then i sat, watching the computer screen for several minutes. nothing happened. obviously. maybe there wasn't anyone online on that particular website. maybe my profile was rubbish. self doubt. anxiety. uneasiness overwhelmed me. i decided to check my profile out, just to make sure it was on the website. it was. after a couple minutes, i realised i couldn't expect people to just start messaging me straight away. that's a dream world. you see that kind of stuff in movies. surely that doesn't happen in real life. what an idiot i am!

then i realised, that since i am a man, i should kinda make the first move (that's how it goes, right?). so i scrolled through the profiles and picked one that i liked. this girl seemed like the girl of my dreams. i started to picture what she looked like, what she did in her spare time, where she lived and what she has done with herself... then i sent an automated message to say that i was interested.

i switched off my laptop and started to get ready for work. when i was ready, my phone beeped to tell me i had an email. i checked it out - and it was from that matrimonial website!! someone was trying to contact me. i quickly ran to my laptop in all excitement, and followed the link from my email to this website. i logged in. and it was a rejection message.

my heart sank. i'm not good enough, i thought to myself. i switched my laptop in anger and went to work. hopefully, work will take my mind off this whole ordeal.

now to link the two stories together.

for every job that i had gotten in my life, i had never been interviewed. each employer just rang me (through recommendation or otherwise) and just offered me a position. in some people's eyes, it would seem like i have an easy life. but what happens to a sportsman who never fails throughout his early career, then suffers a blow in later life? people start to say that this sportsman has lost his edge. that his career is ending. that he should give up while he has some reputation left. or even that he should have given up before his last competition.

that's how i felt. this feeling of defeat was instilled in my heart for what seemed like an eternity when i read the message that was sent back to me saying that she does "not wish to correspond further". i went to work straight away and i couldn't get my mind off that message. i replayed it over and over again in my mind and felt those crude emotions come back to me over and over again.

i had failed to get what i wanted. and it's not the kind of emotion that i would feel when i failed to convince my mother at the supermarket that i needed that chocolate bar when i was younger.

i started to analyse this whole situation and tried to figure out where i went wrong. was it my profile? was the girl not serious? maybe i'm not what she was looking for? maybe Allah (swt) is protecting me from a harm in the future which i cannot see? is it because i hadn't uploaded a picture on my profile?

i started to think about how i had gotten my jobs with so much ease, but failed to get a wife so easily. then i had an emotion which i had no felt before - i started to become slightly jealous of my friends who had applied for jobs and been rejected. i saw them bounce back up after receiving rejection letter after rejection letter after rejection letter. and i thought "how do they do that?"

since they had been rejected sometime in their career, it wasn't anything new if they were rejected for a position later on in their career. why? because they would often look at the possibilities that opened up for them through a rejection. my friends used to call up the employed/interviewer and ask them for feedback - ask them where they could improve themselves. and their tips worked. so rejection wasn't so much of a shock to them - they just dealt with it and moved on to bigger and better things.

in my position, however, it's not like i can email back the girl who rejected me and ask her how i can become a better man for her. that would be weird.

i decided that i should follow in the footsteps of my friends - time for positive thinking now. yes, i have been rejected. but so what. i need to learn how to handle a rejection. i've learnt that not everything falls in my lap. marriage is something that i have to work hard to get. the rewards are sweet - so the incentive is definately there. and there will definately be a hiccup or two on the way to the finish line.

so the next time i get rejected, i will take that as a positive. it would give me an opportunity to reflect. to improve. and i will be one step closer to marriage.

i got home that evening and immediately went back to my profile and made a few tweaks. i was determined not to fail. not in the first hurdle. and this is what i realised. first... hurdle. there are many hurdles that we have to jump over to get what we want. and we have to fail in the process. otherwise, the appreciation of whoever you have next to you is somwhat muted.