Passed over

Rejection always hurts a little. Regardless of what form it comes in, how much you really cared about it in the first place, or what you're being rejected from. Think back to when you were applying for college. Most people apply to several schools with a few that they really don't want to go to (they apply because their mom likes the school, or some other trivial reason), but then when you got deferred from one of the schools you could care less about you still felt bad. Why doesn't that school want me? Did I write a bad essay? I thought my interview went well; they seemed to like me while I was visiting. But, for some reason, now they don't want me there.

I suppose the nature of rejection is to ask why. Why wasn't I good enough for this job/program/person? Maybe we think that we can learn what to do differently in the future to avoid a similar shunning. And you always scrutinize the next person they interview or hire and wonder, what's that person got that I don't have?

You know it's not a big deal. There are other jobs out there and you've got a couple other interviews set up, but you still feel sad. You invested time in that application process and they're moving on without you so quickly. The fact that they can move on so quickly means they didn't even read your application. They don't even really know you, but they've already made a decision about your 'fit'. Even if you haven't invested much effort into it, it still hurts to be shot down. I get a little upset when friends don't call me back to hang out, much less tell me they'd rather just be acquaintances (... ok, that's a stretch).

I'm pushing myself to learn more about the brain, and I think I want to figure out why we feel heartache or sadness. Emotions are created in our brains and yet, we feel physical manifestations in our bodies. For some reason the emotion of sadness causes the muscles in our chest and throat to tense and create a dull physical pain to accompany our emotional strife. I wonder... did natural selection choose this, or was it simply a byproduct of other selective processes.

Either way, when someone tells you 'you're great, but we want to keep looking' it's never really much fun. If only you had been able to tell them 'I don't really want to accept this position' before they rejected you, you'd feel much better about it... right?