Hi Darling,
When I was a kid, I developed this theory about love:
I would rather go down trying.
Looking back now, I can almost definitely trace this theory back to my lifelong obsession with the Julia Roberts character in My Best Friend's Wedding.
(If you haven't seen it: pause everything you're doing, go watch it, come back me.)
I've probably watched that movie three hundred times, and could quote it front to back if challenged to do so.
It's my Chicken Soup movie.
And when I reflect on it, that's pretty weird considering that my favorite character technically... well, loses.
She doesn't get the happy ending. Her best friend does not love her back, not like that. It actually super-sucks.
Yet I love this film anyways. Why?
I think I can narrow it down to the gazebo scene.
After the pond scum moves are said and done, she still goes in for the ask: Choose me. Marry me. Let me make you happy.
And then the kiss, and then the car chase in the bread van, and then she loses.
Friend, if you've been trying to figure out my secret, I think this might be it.
I have been rejected more times than you can possibly imagine. Be it romantically or professionally, I have put myself through the ringer dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
Because I would always rather go down trying. I would always rather take my best shot, and risk getting the No.
Just like Julia does.
That gazebo scene taught me that I owe it to myself to try. To announce, publicly, that I not only want in--I might just be the best woman for the job.
It's become something that I've reiterated in hundreds of interviews over the course of my career:
Pick me. I'm good enough. I can do this. Pick me.
And I've been tossed back out in the cold. Not just some of the time, but most of the time.
But I would rather go down trying. In fact, I genuinely believe it's the only option we have.
The fear of rejection is often worse than rejection itself, and the regret of not trying is worse than both combined.
If you go throw your hat in the ring, you've done better than most ever could.
And mostly, it won't work.
But one day, it will.