The best thing that has ever happened to me, has just happened to me.
In the spirit of rejection therapy, I left the house with the intention of sitting out on the clifftops and writing my newsletter with a nice cup of tea.
What’s this got to do with rejection therapy? Well, I didn’t take any money with me.
And yet, here I am, sitting out on the clifftops, writing my newsletter with a nice cup of tea.
There was no queue at the beach kiosk, but I still had to stand and wait while the kiosk guy faffed with the bins, head down. Pop music was playing loudly from an old speaker.
I was just wondering whether I should make some customer-like noise or take this golden opportunity to run away and save my embarrassment, when the kiosk guy lifted his head.
‘What can I do for you, buddy?’
Here we go: ‘This is an absolutely outrageous request, but I’ve come out with no money – I couldn’t have a tea, could I?’
He didn’t answer, just smiled a wry smile, and went to the machine.
‘That’s so kind, thank you. If you give me a receipt, I’ll come back and pay another time.’
‘No, no. I’m not going to make a fuss over a bit of hot water and a teabag – it’s nothing.’
What a legend. I mean, he’s not wrong: a bit of hot water and a teabag is nothing. But still! He didn’t have to do that.
As I walked away, I thought to myself – actually, I said out loud to no one but the gulls, ‘This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Then I sat down on the clifftops and took a satisfied sip.
Do you think kiosk guy would mind if I went back and asked for one with no milk? No, no – forget it.
On audacity and entitlement
There is a fine line between audacity and entitlement. The distinction, I think, is in the emotions attached.
An audacious move expects rejection. As a result, rejection doesn’t lead to resentment, and acceptance gives you such a buzz of gratitude.
Audacity, somehow, brings people closer together. If you asked me right now, I’d probably give that kiosk guy my spare kidney.
Entitlement, by contrast, leaves both sides cold. Entitlement expects acceptance – or at least acquiescence. The entitled feel no such buzz of gratitude – because they’re only getting the bare minimum they reckon they’re owed by the universe.
Meanwhile, the victim of entitlement can only feel resentment that they have been plonked onto a lower station in the social hierarchy, and exploited. Were the victim to stand up against entitlement, they will face aggression, passive or explicit.
Audacity is the world as an open game of negotiation, engagement, and possibility. Entitlement, by contrast, is the world as a closed system of rules, privacy and hierarchy.
Do you dare to eat a peach?
Hot last weekend, wasn’t it?
Families were streaming to the beach in their thousands. As we pulled up to the cliffs car park, a family were relaxing in deck chairs around their camper, polishing off a barbecue lunch.
Hanging from the night before, one of our party made an audacious move: ‘Smells great, guys. Any chance you’ve got a burger going spare?’
Of course they have. The materfamilias takes delight in splitting a roll and filling it with charred meat and oleaginous relish: but who would dare ask? Who would squeeze the universe into a ball, to roll it toward some overwhelming question?
Rebellion begins with audacity
Clearly, a burger and a cup of tea are pretty small fry. But you can’t begin by asking for the earth. Not even when you are asking for the earth.
Extinction Rebellion didn’t begin with a blockade of London. I imagine it began the same way as the US civil rights movement, the South African rebellion against Apartheid, the revolution in Egypt, and the English Civil War: with an invitation to a meeting in a small room in a flat.
But the modesty of that first meeting doesn’t mask the audacity of the agenda.
Rebellions begin with audacity. In fact, all change – large and small, public and personal – begins with audacity: the audacity to imagine an alternative.
Asking your future partner out for a coffee for the first time. Negotiating for a job, or a raise. Dropping everything to travel overland to Australia – or buying a £550 Nissan Micra to drive to Siberia (never mind that the interior is carpeted entirely in greengrocer’s astroturf). Replacing commercial advertising billboards with more honest messages. Typing the first words into an empty script.
They say that the best things in life are free; I wouldn’t argue with that. But I think it’s more accurate to say that the best things in life are audacious.
Training audacity
My audacity at the kiosk was contrived: I knew before I left the flat that I was going to ask for a free tea. I could instead have come out with my wallet and paid for a tea that I can easily afford.
Other people don’t have it so easy. Do you think the kiosk guy would’ve been so generous to a dishevelled man who carries all his worldly goods in two stuffed plastic bags? Maybe, maybe not.
But this was never a test of my privilege. This was a test of my mettle, training my audacity for greater challenges ahead.
By asking for a tea that I didn’t really need, I tested my courage to engage and negotiate so that when I do really need audacity, I have reserves of confidence to call upon.
There are three stages to a rejection therapy challenge:
- Aim for rejection. Expect the answer ‘no’, but ask anyway. Don’t worry that the challenge isn’t big or clever enough – if you think you’ll be rejected, that’s plenty big and clever.
- Failure is success. You’ve found your limits – for now. Try the same challenge again, with different people, and different approaches.
- Success is failure. A cup of tea – as the kiosk guy pointed out – is nothing. Next time, be bolder, push yourself further.
Above all, if other people are involved, be charming. Smile. Be frank about the fact you’re asking something ridiculous and weird. Have a laugh about it and you might just find yourself a co-conspirator.
And when you are rejected – congratulations! – smile again, say thank you, and walk away with the deep satisfaction that you’ve pushed against your horizon of audacity, and – for now – found its limit.
What about you? Is this concept of audacity useful? How could you be more audacious right now?
By the way, the smug photo of me with my free tea was taken by an Iranian MBA student I met on the clifftops.
As well as my wallet, I came out without my camera, so I walked up to this woman and asked if she could take one on her phone and email it to me.
She took four.
She was the third person I asked.