Rejection is an Important Element in Decision Making

Rejection
is an important (often unspoken) element in Decision Making. Sometimes it’s you
who rejects something or someone and sometimes someone else does the rejecting,
you don’t fit their style. We don’t like rejection; it snatches away our
comfortable zone. Without people realizing it, we select / reject
people and things all the time. Rejections are based on our likes /
dislikes, biases, goals, current cultural norms and assumptions until something
or someone catches our interest.

Selection / Rejection is based on:

Real Future Goals

Real goals provide a vision of something specific you want to be, accomplish, own or invent. The more specific, refined, defined, and clear the vision, the fewer the options and the easier the decision making.

I want to be ___________________. It looks like _______________________. It requires _________, _________________, _____________________, and ___________________.

If a
person’s goal is serious, they won’t have the time or the patience to
hang with people whose goals or priorities are different than yours.

In other words — in selecting a specific future you will drift away from people, activities and interests that won’t bring you closer to your heart’s desire.

Personality Type

Once you know your personality type, you have a clear understanding of why you do, believe and feel the way you do. The natural tendency is to want to be the polar opposite. Each personality type has wonderful qualities; know what they are and how you demonstrate them daily. I call this an I AM list. There will be a personality type (people) you will have a hard time saying NO to. Identify that personality type and those people.

In other words — to know thyself is to accept and appreciate yourself. This is important because some people won’t accept you — you don’t fit their style. Don’t look back; they are not for you; look for people who are for you.

Self-Image

You have to know who you are and who you are responsible to. This knowledge will determine your behavior and who you don’t want to disappoint (Decision Making). There are things you cannot do and people you cannot associate with. Don’t feel bad. This is an example of the de-selection process.

Saying
NO to People and Opportunities

Saying No with grace and style is a skill. Saying No with grace, style, feeling good about you, and maintaining a friendship is an art. There will come a time, when your friends are doing something that is totally not you. You have to make a decision:

Fit in or maintain your independence.
Remember who you are or reject who you are.
Move toward your goals or move away from your goals.

An important principle in Decision Making is to know which friends see you as:

useful to them
fun to be with
someone who loves you.

Someone who Loves you, would not:

Stand there and let you hurt yourself
Do anything that would hurt you
Encourage you to do something that would hurt you

You can always tell who
loves you by their actions.

An Example — there was a picture of Malia Obama smoking weed at a concert. Long before she smoked her first drag of weed, there was a Decision Making process to smoke or not to smoke. To smoke in private or to smoke in public or to smoke anywhere, anytime she wanted. In this process did she consider?

Malia is the daughter of the President of the United States — that is a part of her identity. She is in a privileged position as a member of the First Family. Some people expect exemplary behavior others will say, “Let her alone. Let her be a teenager.” Her parents will be embarrassed. People who don’t know her personally will judge. — Like father, like daughter and so on and so on.
She has a responsibility to her parents and to their standards of public conduct. Is this an example of a public rejection of that standard?
When the First Family is in public, there are cameras everywhere, as a result they should behave accordingly. Did Malia care if someone took a picture of her smoking weed?

My personal reaction was:

Personally I was disappointed in her friends. If they really cared about her, they never would have allowed her to smoke weed in public. They would have protected her from herself. They would have anticipated that someone would film it; sell the film and it would become a public image. Malia might not have cared if there was a picture of her smoking weed, but true friends would have known that a public picture of the act would not have been beneficial to her image. They would have cared about her, her reputation, and her parents’ feelings. We call that peer pressure, which means acceptance of the person, but rejection of the behavior. We all need friends who can be like this.
She didn’t consider the future. This picture is her new identity; some will remember her as the president’s daughter who publicly smoked weed.
Kids publicly smoke marijuana. It is against the law. The super high THC factor is not good.
There is public behavior and there is private behavior. There is legal behavior and illegal behavior. There is ethical behavior and unethical behavior. There is naïve / foolish behavior and there is wise behavior. This is a higher standard — based on my history (people tend to repeat their history), my present circumstance and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do? Decisions that are wise for me will be different from what is wise for someone else because our past, present circumstances and future hopes and dreams are all different.
Sometimes you just can’t be like all the other kids; as a result there is rejection.