"Think of how much time you save when you stop caring what your neighbor says or does. You only have to look at your own work. You only have to make sure your own actions are right."
Stephen King was a broke English teacher. He wrote short stories in a tiny laundry room. He sent those stories to magazines, but the magazines constantly rejected them. He didn't throw the rejection slips away or hide them in a drawer. Instead, he drove a nail into his bedroom wall and shoved every single rejection slip onto that nail.
Eventually the pile of paper got too heavy, pulling the nail right out of the plaster. He continued writing, and replaced the nail with a massive iron spike. He kept writing and he kept adding to the pile.
He didn't listen to the critics or let a subjective rejection define his objective worth. He just focused on the volume of his own action.
Marcus Aurelius tells us we waste our lives worrying about other people's opinions. You can't control the magazine editor. You can't control the critic. You can't control the crowd.
If you let their subjective opinion dictate your action, you surrender your own mind. Rejection isn't a signal to stop. It's just proof that you are actually in the arena. You have to ignore the noise. You have to get a bigger spike and keep making the art.
Errors & Corrections
- Don't hide the rejections. You want to pretend your failures didn't happen. Put them on the wall. They're physical proof of your effort. Be proud of the attempt.
- Don't argue with the critic. You get a bad review. You want to write a long response defending your work. Don't do it. Use that energy to write a better book instead.
- Don't let them set your schedule. A rejection makes you want to take a month off. Keep your hands on the keyboard. Write the next sentence today.
Applications to Modern Life
Work
Your proposal gets shot down in a meeting. You feel humiliated. Don't shrink back. Ask exactly why it failed. Take the data. Fix the proposal. Pitch it again tomorrow.
Leadership
You make an unpopular decision. The team complains. If you know the decision is fundamentally sound, ignore the complaints. Lead through the friction. The results will eventually quiet the room.
Athleticism & Sport
Someone at the gym laughs at your form or your weight. They're irrelevant. Ignore them completely. Lift the weight you are assigned to lift today.
Politics
You run for a local office and lose. It hurts. Don't vanish. The loss is just a rejection slip. Put it on the spike. Keep showing up to the town hall meetings and run again next cycle.
Social Media
You get a nasty comment from a stranger. It ruins your morning. Delete the comment and block the user. Protect your mental space. Don't give an anonymous critic free rent in your head.
Interpersonal Relationships
Your family criticizes your career path. They mean well but they don't understand your vision. Stop trying to convince them with words. You won't win the argument. Convince them with a decade of consistent results.
Maxims
- Get a bigger spike.
- Rejection is just data.
- Keep making the art.
In-depth Concepts
Hypolēpsis (Opinion)
The Stoics knew that opinions are completely subjective. The critic's opinion of your work is just a hypolēpsis. It isn't a hard fact. It has zero power over you unless you actively agree with it.
Eph' Hēmin (Up to Us)
This is the core dividing line in Stoicism. Writing the story is up to you. Getting it published is not. Stephen King focused entirely on the side of the line he controlled.