"No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory." Emerson.
No one is in the world for the purpose of failure. No one was born because there was a need for more rejection, dismissal, and defeat.
Too many people operate on the old “Three strikes and you’re out” mentality. I once had a professor who gave me some unsolicited but very helpful advice about submitting articles to professional philosophy journals for possible publication. He said: “Don’t even THINK about being discouraged until you’ve been rejected at least six times!” Shortly after that conversation, my first book was rejected thirty six times. At that point, I must admit that I was thinking very seriously about being discouraged. It was an obvious option. Depression was even a possibility. But the thirty seventh publisher I approached said yes. And I was a published author at the age of twenty-two.
One author I’ve heard about has wall-papered his office with rejection letters. Some of the top all time hit songs have been recorded by performers who were told repeatedly that they had no chance at all. There are great actors whose first two or three or seven movies were all bombs. We won't even speak of all the actors who dream about being in any kind of movie, even a terrible one, while they finish yet another long shift as waiters in LA restaurants, or clerks in stores there. How many times have they heard "No"?
A professor out west mailed his prized manuscript to a major publisher hoping for a quick ascent to fame and fortune. A month later, an envelope arrived by return mail containing literally the ashes of his hard work.
Don’t let little defeats get you down. Even repeated defeats. As Emerson said a hundred and fifty years ago, we are indeed all born to victory. We can rise again from any ashes we encounter.
