Riaz Quraish Maqsoodi
Ella; one of the characters of one of the best novels of all time, “Forty Rules of Love” has a very bad habit of fearing. Ella has the fear of rejection. Ella clears her graduation in English literature at the age of 18. She wants to become a novelist because she loves fiction, but due to some reasons she gets married as after getting her graduation done. When she becomes nineteen years old she carries a child in her belly because of what she cannot carry on with further education. Afterwards, when her daughter (Jennette) gets the age of six years, then Ella makes her mind to re-indulge in the activities that she used to do when she was in college, like, writing short-stories, book reviews for local newspapers and etc. Suddenly, one day Ella’s husband David who is a very loving and caring husband suggests to live up her dream of becoming a novelist, and it was not so that she did not want to, but what stopped was her fear of rejection; yes, indeed the fear of rejection. As a poet says, “There live two humans in every human”. One is the concrete body and other is abstract soul. A few years later things began to change. The children were grown enough to take care of themselves as it seemed that they didn’t need their mother as much as they had needed before. So it meant Ella had much spare time, and that the right time that she could get her dream of becoming a novelist re-lightened. And there came the time when could fill online and offline applications for jobs, and many of the times she even wrote/filled the applications, but when time of sending came her hands couldn’t help since her hand were controlled by her heart and her heart was full of fear of rejection. Ella often thought who would hire an inexperienced lady in her forties, there might be newly graduated candidates applying the same time so surly they would get the job. That was that the biggest reason of her not sending job applications for jobs.Nevertheless, Ella’s husband, apart from being a sensitive and loving was a fine businessman too, which meant he had nice friends and clients who could find his wife (Ella) a nice job of her choice. Thus, it that was Ella’s forty second (42nd) birthday on which Ella’s husband (David) came up with a big surprise for Ella by finding her a nice job of her choice through one of his clients. But, again Ella wondered if deep inside her husband felt guilty about keeping her away from a career that’s he was so overwhelmed to Ella a career to prove him to be a loving husband. Such kind of thoughts were also some of the reasons because of what she didn’t try for a career either. But, in fact that wasn’t so. That was only and only her false thought. But, for good at last she accepts the job proposal and carries on with her new job as book critic. Ella’s fear of rejection and false thought never lit Ella live-up her dreams. What we should learn is that, that we shouldn’t be afraid of being rejected, because rejection gives more and better chances in life and makes us determined towards our goal..
(-The writer teaches English at Bolan English Language Center.)