I often think about this one time a few years ago, when my partner and I were searching for a place to rent. One of the apartments we looked at was beautiful. It was spacious, unusually so, with slick, wooden floorboards that made you feel like you were in a ballet studio. There were two bathrooms, one on each end, and a ceiling-to-floor mirror in each bedroom. It was exactly within budget, a perfect location. However, when we left, we both agreed to leave it. “There’ll be loads of interest,” one of us said. “So what’s the point?” The flat, we’d decided, was too good for us. We didn’t want to be rejected.
While the choice was hardly life-altering, I’ve often thought about it as a wider allegory for my relationship to rejection more generally. Not to sound like the type of person who does TED Talks or appears on business podcasts, but how many other opportunities have potentially passed me by because I was too scared of that little two-letter word: no? How many times have I narrowed the opportunities right in front of me because I didn’t feel good enough to consider them? And what’s so frightening about the mere threat of rejection anyway? It’s a simple “no”—not a beheading. And sometimes, of course, it’s a yes.
It was in the dead period between Christmas and the New Year that I started being fed endless Reels about “seeking rejection.” Why would anyone do that? I thought, mindlessly scrolling, mouth probably open. Surely that would make you feel like shit. But I did find myself becoming increasingly intrigued. This one woman had spent the year trying to be rejected 1000 times. Among the rejections were quite a few surprising moments in which she’d received a yes. She’d tried to be rejected for a national pageant title, “but they accepted me. So now I’m a national pageant title holder.” She’d tried to be rejected for a Dutch passport, “but they accepted me, so now I’m a Dutch citizen.” “Let this be your sign,” she concluded. “Chase rejection.”
Others quickly followed suit. “In 2026, I’m trying to get rejected 1000 times,” said another woman. “I’m so scared of failure, and I’m so scared of rejection, that a lot of times I don’t put myself out there.” Another poster, also seeking rejection, asked a random stranger if she wanted to share a dessert with her. The stranger said yes, and the two of them teared into some Nutella cookies together. The cynical among us (me), might think that all of this sounds a bit “self-help by influencers”, a bit “late-stage capitalism”. But I do think there are some lessons to be gleaned among the slop. Namely: the more you ask, the more you actually experience. It’s basic maths.
