“I was willing to be rejected. That’s what allows you to be a good salesperson. You have to be willing to be rejected.”

–Atul Gawande, Being Mortal

Gawande, in the above passage, is talking about a doctor who was able to sell his new ideas on caregiving to a nursing home, resulting in better quality of life for the patients.

But a willingness to be rejected is true of many successful pursuits in life. Most writers who eventually publish first undergo rejection from publishers.

One fights the temptation to quit too early. Success may require persistence. Top athletes do not begin at the top of their form. Politicians may lose races before they finally succeed.

We are unrealistic if we expect to succeed all the time. Accepting that one path is not the right one and choosing another is not necessarily failure. Sometimes it’s part of a journey.

But one has to start out. And starting out requires the understanding that failure will happen along the way. We must be willing to endure in order to enjoy a useful life.