Rejection Protection

REJECTION PROTECTION?
Watching "American Idol" has become a sort of national pastime among those who either enjoy it wholeheartedly or as a guilty pleasure. Most will tell you that they watch as much to see contestants get rejected as they do to see the rise of The Next Big Thing. When a horrible audition and rejection are followed by outrageous displays of agony or even anger, it illustrates a disturbing trend of entitlement that's developing in our society.
What happened to the days when there were winners and losers? We've reached a dangerous point where our children are competing in sports where everyone gets a trophy, or they don't even keep score. Birthday parties can't be mentioned in class unless every student will be invited. Does this protect the development of character, or completely undermine it?
Self-esteem is just that - it's about you and how you handle acceptance and rejection. It cannot be given by others, and it cannot be developed without experiences that run the spectrum from success to failure. Competition provides a critical arena for such experience, but only when it is acknowledged that some will do better or worse than others, and that such an outcome is acceptable.
An unhealthy sense of entitlement emerges when we never have to lose and thus face our failures. Some of those "American Idol" contestants, who honestly have no talent, are completely crushed by the rejection that follows their 30-second audition. These young people are completely unprepared to hear the truth, completely unprepared to walk out of the room without their "golden ticket." It's pitiable that they've been raised to believe they can have whatever they want, without having put in the hard work to achieve that success.
One bedrock of our society has been that anyone can achieve their dream, and it's true. But success is determined by understanding the difference between dreams and reality, and by the strength we gain from working through our failures on the road to our goals. Our ability to succeed walks hand-in-hand with - and cannot move forward without - our ability to handle rejection and failure. Walk on!