If
you’ve ever felt like giving up on your dreams, you may already be familiar with
these stories that are circulated on the Internet as encouragement to stick with them:
- After Fred Astaire's first screen test in 1933, a memo from MGM’s testing director read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little."
- Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn't hire him.
- Disney himself went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.
- As an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison is reported to have replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
- Edmond Newton auditioned for Project Runway every year since the show started – 20 times – before being selected and getting all the way to the finale, where he showed his line at New York Fashion Week (and, in my opinion, was robbed of the win).
And while I wouldn’t put
myself in the league of any of these luminaries, I’m happy to report that,
after four years of not even being invited for interviews for jobs that I was
eminently qualified for, and of at least eight heart-breaking rejections, I am
going to work in August for Blue Engine as a teaching assistant in a New York
City public school. I’m “over-the-moon” excited to be returning to the
classroom after a very long hiatus, and to be embarking on work that can make a
positive difference in the world. So, I’m using this post in the same way those
other Internet sites have – to encourage you not to give up on your goals and
dreams either; to see your latest rejection as just another step in your
successful light bulb experiment. In the words of Ella Fitzgerald, “Just
don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and
inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
