Rising above rejection

The two of us – myself and my colleague Leah – were waiting at the bus stop for our respective buses. Minutes passed and the number of people gathered increased but not a bus was in sight. Soon, a bus came and stopped in front of us. Quick to recognise it, I pointed out to Leah that her bus had ultimately come and she could go home well before me.

Leah wondered if the bus in front was actually for her, as she was so used to the standard red colour bus, while this one was painted bright blue. So stuck was she on her belief that only a red bus would serve her purpose, that Leah was not interested to even check whether this bus  would help her or not – something that intrigued me and got me thinking.

How often do we ‘see’ people and decide they are not good enough for us or to be connected with, just because they don’t look the way we think they should or behave like most of us? We find it so comforting to deal with the sameness and routine of life that something or someone slightly different from us unsettles us.

I still cannot forget how my classmates sidelined me as I belonged to a sub-sect, albeit the same community speaking the same language. I would not be taken into group games and taunts would be thrown at me in the absence of teachers, whereas the teachers saw what I was made of and unanimously elected me to be the school pupil leader for that year.

An otherwise well-settled, single woman shared how usually friendly women of her neighbourhood suddenly huddled together during festivals excluding her, for she did not have a husband. The girl she adopted gets ignored at gatherings, her cousins not considering her worth talking to or going out with, at times.

The mother and daughter duo seems to be on a never-ending journey, using their time to learn interesting things, involving themselves in worthy pursuits, empathising with others in the same boat, all of which has helped them discover their hidden strengths within. Consequently, they have become resourceful to many people around them.

Intolerance and rejection are two sides of the same coin, I believe, that has been going around in our society for ages. The former gives rise to the latter and, most often, it is unfair to the one at the receiving end, however justified it seems to the doer.

Rejection cannot be wished away, so the antidote to this malady is to develop our coping skills, which is to learn to wear slippers instead of expecting the world to be carpeted. Maybe, a good sense of humour is required to realise that the perpetrators are not worth bothering about and the time spent to tackle them is better invested elsewhere.

Rising above rejection takes us to a new lofty level, just as a slimy caterpillar transforming into an attractive butterfly or a lotus blooming in the dirt becomes a cynosure to all those around.