Unless a person is in an amazing state of imbalance, to be rejected hurts. How much it hurts is the variable, often dependent on one’s personal investment. For sure salespeople have to adjust to potential customers saying “No” if they want to remain in sales.
Rejection can also arrive from several directions: a love interest, job application, desire to expand one’s social network, friendships, serve one’s country in the military, etc. It can basically read by the rejectee as a signal that whatever is offered is unwanted: I don’t want you, your love, I don’t want to hire you, get to know you, friend you, etc. From that point, several self-sabotage head tapes may contribute further background distress.
For artists, in whatever genre, rejection is often felt as a personal issue. When successful, we have invested ourselves wholly in our art. Artists work demands full body engagement: mind, heart, soul. In contrast, I remember selling nicely made Moroccan wallets, cheap, at Christmas time no less, in a well-respected downtown store in Chicago, and made only two sales in three 8-hour days (and was subsequently fired). It did not break my heart.
Writers and actors are famous for being quoted about rejection. Actor Michael York (3-27-1942--) is quoted as saying, “I think you have to believe in your destiny; that you will succeed. You will meet a lot of rejection and it is not always a straight path, there will be detours – so enjoy the view.”
Going back a bit further, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (AD 4-26-121 to 3-17-180) suggested one can “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
As a practicing artist, writer and performer, I have had, and continue to have, a plethora of rejections. As an artist they keep generating as long as I keep submitting my work for acceptance.
Way back when, rejection almost scared me off from doing. Then it just got depressing and tearful. That response has shifted. Rejection happens and feeling hurt by such happens. Normally I can now accept that, consider it part of the whole, and move on within hours.
Since becoming more concerned with well-being, health, happiness, and all that, I practice resilience and amor fati to deal with the pain of rejection or other difficulty.
From Psych Central:
“Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts, and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.”
http://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-resilience/
And further from Psych Central:
“Research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary ... Being resilient does not mean that a person doesn’t experience difficulty or distress. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress.”
Though normal people experience rejection on occasion, artists get to experience it on a regular basis. It comes with the territory. Still waiting on the fame, glamour and big bucks….