Morgan+G’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

“No” - a one syllable, two lettered word that drives everyone insane. When you were younger and went to the grocery store with your mom, you would wander away from the safety of your red shopping cart. Once your hand left the cold, rusty, metal bars, you were on your own. Stumbling upon aisle 7, the candy aisle, you stop dead in your tracks, this is your destiny. You pick up a small bag of gummy bears and walk back to the safety of your cart, only to find that the familiar red cart is gone, along with your mom. You suddenly race back and forth up each aisle but to no luck. You lost your mom. The traumatizing feeling of abandonment flushes your body and you turn to a pale white color. You round the corner of aisle 8 and see your mom hunched over, deciding between a can of Whole Kernel Sweet Corn and Whole Kernel Corn. You walk up to her panting from all the running and the anxiety attack you had just a few seconds ago. You hold up the bag of gummy bears and ask “can I get this please” but to your displeasure, she squints her eyes and says “no, go put them back”. That’s where the waterworks come in. You break out into a tantrum. This is your first encounter of the word “no”. Fast forward a couple of years to when you are 8 years old and you are invited to your first sleepover. You beg your parents to let you go but they start hitting you with a bunch of questions that you don't have the answers to. They become frustrated with your lack of knowledge and settle upon “no, it’s not a good idea, I don’t know the parents”. At this point your life is ruined. You convince yourself that your parents are against you and never let you do anything fun. High school is where the rejections started to get even more dramatic. We can start it with the first guy that I have ever talked to. He was a walking giant! What? Like 6’6? 6’7? HUGE! Given that he was the first guy that I flirted back with, I was scared. I wasn’t sure if I liked him or just his height. Afraid of making a decision I would regret, I told the walking giant that I just wanted to be friends. I’m not sure if he got the memo because he totally ignored me for four months after that. I legit wanted to be friends with the guy but he blew me off. Note to self; walking giants do not cope well with rejection. There was also the case with the speech and debate kid who wore colored pants. I was just friends with him, nothing more, nothing less, and he randomly blocked me on everything. So I called him out on it and he said “I just didn’t think that us talking would do either of us any good”. And at this point I was like yo, what?? He said “If I want something to happen, and you don't, then it's best to stop talking” As far as I was concerned, I was just friends with the guy, but he took it to a whole new level. I apologize for sending the wrong message but I was so over it. I don’t think completely cutting someone out of your life is the best answer. It bothered me. Who is that helping? I hope he’s happy. Many of you may be familiar with the boys on the volleyball team, but I'm talking about a specific player, one who can’t keep his mouth shut, one who has fingers for toes. We were pretty close friends; given the fact we went to middle school together, we both play volleyball, AND HE DATED MY COUSIN! Right around the time of prom he told me that if no one asked me to the prom, he would take me, just as friends though. I brushed off his idea because I wasn’t sure how to answer it. The following day I told my cousin what her ex had said to me and I asked her if she would feel uncomfortable with me going to prom with him. She told me she didn’t like the idea, so I kindly rejected the boy’s offer to prom. Telling him that, although I was flattered that he asked me, I didn’t think us going together was the best idea because it would make me and my cousin feel uncomfortable. And here’s what he said to me: he said, “I think it's fine if we go as friends, obviously, it's not like we have feelings for eachother.” I was pretty annoyed by his answer, he didn’t respect the fact that I said no the first time. I rephrased my answer, hoping he would understand it this time, but he came back with “did I give you the impression that I was gonna to ask you?” I was so confused at this point. Indeed he did give me that impression: WHEN HE ASKED ME! Suddenly.. he turned on me.. faster than a jackrabbit on rocket skates. He started going up to my close friends and began telling them how much of a bitch I am. He convinced himself that I was talking shit about him, but I wasn’t. All of a sudden my so called friend showed his true colors: a spoiled brat that lashes out when he doesn’t get his way. Get this, now he thinks we are good friends! He acts as if none of that ever happened, I'm still on the fence about calling him out for being such a jerk to me. He is so immature, he acts like he can just get away with all this. That kid needs a wakeup call, a good slap in the face, sadly, someone already beat me to it - thanks, Emily. If we are already struggling to deal with rejection at such a young age, how do we expect to get back up again when we fall in the future? For us AP students faced with failure, rejection had become a familiar face. When Fitz hands back our multiple choice tests covered in red slashes it looks as if a massacre has occurred on our bubble sheets. Or when Geib hands back your essay that you were hella proud of, only to reveal a low four at the top of your page, with a defeating note that summarizes “I’ve seen better”. Sure it stings a bit when you don’t get the grade you wanted, but you work harder to get a better score the next time. Fortunately, for us AP students, we don’t just give up because of one bad score. We don’t drop the class because it seems too hard, we take the challenge and learn from our mistakes. How about applying to your first job? What are the odds of you actually getting hired? Being underage and inexperienced allows you to easily be overlooked by many places. Of course you are going to get shut down, but I highly doubt you’ll abandon all hope just from one rejection. It’s not like you are going to throw everything away and lock yourself in a dark room to play video games and eat stale chips for the rest of your life. No, you are going to recover from that rejection and find somewhere better to employ yourself. One rejection is not the end of the world. Think about it, next year we are applying for college. Like holy shit! I feel like it was just yesterday that I was that hysteric little girl in the grocery store who lost her mom and threw a tantrum because she didn’t get her gummy bears. Now you expect me to apply to colleges?? We are all dreading the day when that little envelope comes in the mail. That little envelope from some prestigious college that you applied to. We are all afraid of the words “sorry, we regret to inform you that we are not able to offer you a spot in the class of 2022.” No one is looking forward to that letter, but somewhere in the backs of our minds, we all know that receiving that letter in inevitable. The human experience of rejection goes all the way back to our ancient roots. Guy Winch, author of Emotional First Aid: Practical Strategies For Treating Failure, Rejection, Guilt, and Other Everyday Psychological Injuries writes that “when we were hunter-gatherers and living in tribes, the price of ostracism (or exclusion) was pretty much death. You wouldn’t survive without your tribe; you wouldn’t have the warmth of hearth, the protection of fire. Therefore, we developed an early warning system — the feeling of rejection — to alert us when we might be at risk for ostracism. The more painful the experience of rejection, the more likely humans were to change their behavior to avoid ostracism, and be able to survive. Meanwhile, those who didn’t experience rejection as painful were less likely to correct their behavior.” Everyone is sensitive towards rejection, it’s not fun when things don’t go the way you want. But too many people are unable to deal with being rejected. We have children that throw tantrums when they don’t get their way, people like the walking giant who ignore you for months on end, there’s people who wear tight purple pants that completely cut you out of their life, and then there are the immature little men with foot fetishes that talk shit about you. Good luck to all of you applying for college next year, let me know how you feel about those rejection letters. And to those applying for jobs, if you aren’t hired the first time, don’t sweat it, it just wasn’t meant to be, there will be other openings. And as for those of you whose relationships don’t work out, take a deep breath, the right person will come with time. People should be more accepting towards rejection. I’m not saying you need to welcome it with open arms, but deal with it in a mature way. RECOVER! It’s not the end of the world. Have a more positive mindset, you can’t let rejection define you and you can’t take it so personally either. Rejection is something to cope with, something to learn from, don't let it tear you down.