During the past week or so you have probably noticed all of the high school graduation photos and lists of graduates we have printed in the paper. There are a lot of young people from Lake County who are just now setting out to take the plunge into what has long been known as the “real world.” Some of these young people will go on to college or a trade school, some will look for work and some will juggle a combination of the two. One thing that is certain, even in the best of times, but more so now, is that many of these youngsters will face some form of rejection.
Right now, many students are probably waiting for acceptance or, heaven forbid, rejection letters from the list of schools they wanted to be accepted into. Based on the currently depressed economy, colleges and universities are experiencing greater numbers of applications, which means more than normal rejections. For those who plan to go directly into the work force, well, it”s no secret what is happening there. Jobs are not plentiful at the moment.
What is important for all people to realize, not only the just-graduated high school students, is that rejection is a large part of life, and not something that needs to always be looked at as negative. Sure, everyone wants to strive for acceptance and success. That is our nature. And, while it might appear that some people always breeze through life encountering no major obstacles, that is generally not the case.
Take, for example, some well-known people we always associate with success, such as founder of CNN, Ted Turner, the world”s greatest investor, Warren Buffet, and Nobel Prize winner for medicine, Harold Varmus. All were refused entry to their first choice of colleges. It didn”t stop them from becoming a huge success and, by their own admission, some thought that the fact they went to the second or third school on their list was what helped them toward their accomplishments. Harold Varmus was turned down twice by Harvard Medical School. The dean he spoke with actually advised him to join the military and forget college. He went on to receive a Nobel Prize and to become the president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Articles in magazines and yes, newspapers, often preach that it is almost impossible to be successful in life these days without a college education. It isn”t necessarily so. While it is easy to list the captains of business from the past who either never went to college or dropped out quickly, such as Walt Disney, Henry Ford and Milton Hershey, who, by the way, only had a fourth-grade education when he started his famous candy company, there are many current business leaders who don”t have a sheepskin diploma hanging behind their desk. Bill Gates, of Microsoft, Michael Dell of Dell computers, Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay cosmetics and Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, Inc., either never went to college or dropped out.
Success in life can be found down a large number of avenues and one thing is certain, rejection will be involved along the way. It is usually those individuals who are motivated by rejection, rather than crushed by it, who are able to continue on to their goal and succeed. Richard Fenton, author of “Go for No” said, “What if, starting today, the word no didn”t stop you anymore? What if every time you heard the word no you became stronger, more powerful and more resilient?” His philosophy is that the more no answers you get puts you that much closer to a yes. I have always felt that the only time I fail is when I quit trying. So, don”t give up.
Gary Dickson is the editor and publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
