There are two ways to process this:

The selection committee saw me, understood me, and then decided to reject me.

or

The selection committee didn’t get what I had to offer. I wasn’t rejected, my application was. It’s not that I didn’t get in, it’s that they didn’t engage with the story I told.

We can always do a better job of finding the place where we might thrive. And a better job of living and telling the story that earns us a chance to get to that place.

But the chances that you were fully seen and rejected as a person are slight indeed.

January 18, 2024