Who doesn’t want to be chosen?

I did.

After all, it wasn’t like there were any other options.

If I was to succeed (and I always had an internal drive to be successful), you had to be chosen…

 

In my experience…

 

I had to be chosen by the right college. (Nope)

I had to be chosen by the right graduate school. (12^th time is the charm, right?)

I had to be chosen for the right job. (Never happened)

I had to be chosen for the TV show that would make me a household name. (They chose someone else)

 

Someday I would get the magic call. Someday I would get tapped on the shoulder. Someday the one with the power would choose ME.

Despite never being chosen in the way I really hoped, I clung to this strategy as THE WAY to get what I wanted.

I carried this belief with me when it was time to create a book (a long time desire of mine).

From my perspective, it was time to climb Mt. Prove Myself once again.

And I am strong. I am stubborn. I can Prove Myself in a pinch.

So the process began.

 

I was chosen by an agent.

He did his job and got me into an editor’s office at a major publishing house in New York City.

I floated to my appointment that day. I arrived early and sat in a park, watching nannies play with children. I walked slowly to my destination, the iconic Flatiron building, not wanting to work up a sweat.

I got buzzed in a couple times to meet the woman, The Editor, who would hold my fate in her hands like a lump of  dough.

Would she turn me into a pizza? Pleeeeaassse?

 

Excited, I shook her hand and introduced myself. In just a minute or two, I would dazzle her, she’d chose me, and my dream would come true.

When I sat down, it was clear she had no idea who I was or why I was here. She looked frazzled. Disorganized. A tad sloppy.

She thumbed through my proposal and seemed to remember some aspects of it she liked enough to grant me this private meeting with her. Half interested, she asked me a few questions and I answered with the eagerness of a puppy.

 

Choose me.

Choose me!

You won’t regret it, I promise!

I am soooo close!

Choose ME!

 

I left feeling happy.

I’d done everything right. I believed in myself and what I had to offer. I think she even liked me by the end of the meeting.

In the end, she did not choose me. Something about the marketing department putting the kibosh on things. Blah blah blah.

 

Another crushing rejection. Just like I was when the colleges told me no. And the grad schools. And the job at the liberal arts colleges.

If I couldn’t get into her Club, I figured I could just be persistent… I would not quit until someone chose me!

Someone would have me, for sure… Plenty of heartwarming stories about authors being rejected, right? (J.K. Rowling, anyone?)

 

But I’d crossed some threshold.

I was already quite successful on my own terms. Why was I trying to convince some stranger (who seemed rather exhausted with her own life) to choose me when I could simply choose myself?

 

Somewhere in there, I decided to cross Mt Prove Myself of my list of destinations in favor of Choose Myself Lane.

Never missed it.

 

P.S. My book’s been out for two years and this will be its bestselling month ever.