In the course of living we all have to live with what we know as rejection. Rejection is a particular psychological reaction to an event (or object) that prompts an emotional response within us and creates the need for re-adaptation.
The word rejection comes from the verb reject which comes from the Latin word rejectus which literally means "to throw back" (from re- "back" + form of jacere "to throw").
So to be rejected means to be thrown back from something - something that we presumably originally desired. Again, speaking psychologically, rejection is associated with the subject/object relationship - more on that later.
Some time ago, I was investigating literary rejections, and it came as quite a surprise to me to find out that many successful authors and their books had been rejected by publishers many times before eventually being published.
George Orwell, the author of the prophetic and futuristic 1984 was rejected 4 times before being accepted by a publisher. Beatrix Potter had The Tale of Peter Rabbit rejected 7 times before eventually being published. The hugely successful contemporary author J K Rowling had Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone rejected 12 times before being picked up by her publisher Bloomsbury. Frederick Forsyth had The Day of the Jackal rejected 14 times. Bryce Courtenay, the author of The Power of One was rejected 16 times before being published. Science fiction author Frank Herbert, had Dune trilogy rejected 23 times before being accepted by a publisher. Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, had her manuscript rejected 35 times before being accepted for publication. Action author Tom Clancy had The Hunt for Red October rejected 177 times before being published. Not only were all these books eventually published, buy it they were also made into successful movies.
From these rejection stories we can conclude that rejection neither absolute nor final, and that it can even produce desirable outcomes. Just imagine, if Jo Rowling had given in to her rejection feelings on any of the first 11 times - we might never have had the Harry Potter phenomenon. This leads us back to the subject/object relationship, and the question of why is it that rejection is acceptable for some people and unacceptable for others?
If we assume that rejection occurs when our ego is thrown back away from an object (or event), our first move should be to look at the nature of the initial association. In this case, there seems to me to be two types of association. Either the association actually matters or it doesn't and either it is based on projection (unconsciousness) or recognition (consciousness) . In any case, rejection can prompt re-adaptation.
Rejection, like suffering, creates the psychological conditions for a growth in consciousness. Whether it be a revaluation of the object, or an realignment of our relation to it, rejection can be the prompt for increased determination as well as the catalyst for letting go.