Little Miss Peanut

When my mom was a little kid, she entered something called the "Little Miss Peanut" contest, where she competed against a handful of other girls her age for the coveted title. 

She recited a four verse 19th century poem from memory, had a beautiful new dress, and had even buffed her own mary-janes. She was beaming with pride and confidence - Little Miss Peanut would be hers...

Until an unfortunate twist of events - 

At the end of the contest, it turned out that the winner was simply a name pulled out of a hat at random, and a dirty little tom-boy who had prepared nothing for her talent walked away with the prize.

W.T.F?! 

Afterwards, my grandfather took her out for ice cream and gave her an valuable piece of advice: Life Isn't Fair. 

This week, I experienced my own, small, version of Little Miss Peanut failure. 

I entered this previously mentioned video contest, and unfortunately, I lost - to an entry that had been turned in a full day late. 

I was pretty bummed.

Why is it that I put in so much work, and managed to get my video in on time, and someone else turned it in a full day late and won!?

W.T.F?!

BUT - then I remembered my grandfather's advice, and I started thinking about all the other things I gained from this experience.


If you look at the list of positive versus negative things that resulted from this project, the positives strongly outweigh the negatives.
As in literally like a hundred to one. 

I directed my first film project, I got to create something with all of my friends that will last for years to come, archiving a special time in our lives, I got to live in the fantasy of winning for a week, I became creatively fueled and invigorated, and I made something that I'm really proud of!
So what if I didn't actually win? 

To be completely honest, I feel like this was the first time in a while that I kinda put myself out there. A lot of things in my life are pretty comfortable - same job since I was 18, same relationship for going on 6 years, there's a lot of areas of my life where I haven't put myself out there to be rejected. 
Sure, I put things on the internet, I open myself up to the possibility of seething YouTube wrath, but nothing where I, and specifically my work, could be out-right denied.
And oddly, it feels kinda good.
I've started finding a bizarre renewal of strength in rejection. 
I've encountered the worse case scenario in putting myself out there, and it wasn't that bad at all!

The way I see it - I won. 
I didn't get to fly to New York, but I definitely won. 

And the best part, I got a phone call from my parents saying I'm still their little miss peanut.