Grace is Overrated

Junior year of college, I went through the soul-crushing, ego draining, self-esteem decimating process of applying for a Truman Scholarship.

As a point of reference, this process generally involves:

1) Six months puffing yourself up to the point that you feel not only worthy of applying, but highly deserving of the fellowship,
2) A month or two of filling out paper work and writing essays designed to make you look like you are the most talented, ambitious, altruistic, "going-places" person in the world, self-promotional to the point of gagging while appearing inhumanly modest,
3) A month of having professors you respect rip your application, your resume, your personal goals, and your own personality to shreds, brushing off everything you've ever done as insufficient and immaterial, and then rebuilding your application into one that fits the mold of a "Truman Scholar" regardless of how much it actually reflects you,
4) An excruciating month of waiting to see if you are chosen as a Finalist,
5) Another excruciating month of preparing for the Finalist interview if you were so "lucky" as to make the cut. (This month is similar to step 4, except now the professors ask even more personal questions and then rip your answers apart to your face),
6) One fun day of feeling awfully special and important because you are a Finalist for a Truman Scholarship,
7) Two weeks of feeling absolutely certain that you rocked the interview and that you'll soon be getting that special letter from Madelaine Albright informing you of your winning status,
And, in my case,
8) A good long month of feeling like a complete and total loser. Because, you know, at least in the eyes of the Truman Committee, you were. (Despite all their rhetoric about 'everyone being a winner' and 'just being a Finalist is a great honor,' fact is, you either leave with $40,000 and a title...or you don't.)

Right. So I went through that long, fun, 'character-building' process my junior year. When it was all over, my advisor took me out to lunch (consolation prize, I suppose.) At the end of it, he looked me in the eye and told me that I had handled the process, and all the accompanying rejection, 'with a lot of grace.' My parents, he said, had done well.

That was it, but coming from a man whose opinion of me was incredibly, incredibly important to me at the time, it meant a whole lot. I may have been a Truman-loser, but I had grace.

I think of being a graceful loser as one of those marks of character that separate the wheat from the chaff...right up there with people who do good works anonymously without hope of credit, those who keep obligations they've made even if no one expects them to, and those who speak up for what is right even though they will personally be worse off for having done so. So it meant a lot when someone I respected complimented me on a character trait I've always aspired to have.

All of that said...

Lately, I've felt like I've had a lot of opportunity to show my grace off. (Granted, showing off your grace may well be an oxymoron.) I've applied for -- and lost out on -- enough fellowships and jobs in the last few years to have gotten awfully, awfully good at taking rejection well. I'm a regular pro at it.

And you know, I'm a little tired of it. I think I've learned that lesson well now. I'm ready for luck to turn a little in my favor. I'm ready to learn to win with grace. And I don't even need to get credit or recognition for being good at it...I'll be more than happy to just take the win for once.