The middle school DI team is meeting again tonight.

As I drove home tonight, I saw a guy buy the sign with one of those ubiquitous cardboard signs.

Homeless vet. Down on luck.

I rolled down the window and asked if he wanted a bag of girl scout cookies I had in the car. He politely refused, but thanked me for the offer. I just smiled and nodded.

Outwardly, I was cool and collected. But inwardly, I felt a tiny twinge of something uncomfortable. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling and I quickly realized that this was the pain of rejection. That’s that ugly feeling in high school when you finally get the courage to ask that girl out only to get a polite rejection followed by giggles. Yuck.

Is fear of rejection what holds us back from approaching people even when we have good intentions?

If so, perhaps its time to suck it up and realize that this pain is just in our head.