Pursuing a dream often asks us to hold two realities at once: its seeming impossibility and the bone-deep certainty of its inevitability. I know the feeling of looking at that dream and thinking, “This may never happen.” And then, somehow, beneath that doubt, another voice insists, “Keep going. This is yours to make.”
I’ve been there, and I can tell you that the tension between “impossible” and “inevitable” is part of the work. An important one. And you should stay with it.
I think all great innovations are built on rejections.
Why I Loved My Rejection Slips
In the late 1980s, I shared a tiny Boston apartment with my sister, Anne. During a particularly biting New England winter, I sat on the windowsill watching snow fall on the brick sidewalks of Garden Street and made a decision.
I would do whatever it took to be published.
Every week, I submitted poetry and short stories to publishers of all stripes. I submitted query letters to magazines, anthology editors, and literary journals.
And every week, the mailbox yielded plain, white #10 envelopes with rejection letters tucked inside.
Instead of hiding those letters in a drawer, I began taping them to my bedroom wall. Before long, I had wallpapered an entire side of the room with what I called my “Dear Author” letters.
Anne looked at that wall and saw a monument to sadness. To me, my Dear Author wall was both humorous and inspiring. When I viewed the uneven collection of paper, I felt pride, purpose. It was tangible proof that I was in the arena.
What I was experiencing in that chilly room in Boston is something many determined entrepreneurs and creators eventually encounter—the exhausting, exhilarating tension of holding two seemingly opposite beliefs at once.
I knew, with absolute certainty, that my dream was impossible. And I knew, with equal certainty, that its inevitability was simply a matter of time.
What Happens When We Step Into the Unknown?
When we step into the uncertain territory of creation, our minds can feel like a battleground. Launching a business, making art, or pursuing a dream asks us to hold two realities at once: where we are and where we believe we could be. The gap between them can create genuine psychological tension, especially when the evidence before us seems to argue against the future we are trying to build.
The temptation is to flee. To choose comfort, distraction, or the safer path. Anything that might quiet the uncomfortable chatter long enough for us to feel certain again.
But our magic lives inside that ambiguity.
Mental Friction Leads to Originality
When we hold conflicting beliefs, we can experience what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, a form of mental friction that surfaces the contradiction, making it palpable and difficult to ignore.
That tension can invite us to examine our biases, weigh competing evidence, and reconsider assumptions we once took for granted. Sometimes, if we stay with the discomfort long enough, something unexpected emerges—a fresh perspective or an innovative third path.
This is one place where originality can begin. The tension we feel may be the sensation of our minds expanding to consider and hold a larger version of ourselves, our lives.
Looking back, I can see that I was living this tension long before I had words for it. Every poem, every story, every rejection letter was teaching me to stay in the space between impossible and inevitable. Those years of creative dissonance would eventually become part of the raw material for my book, BUOYANT.
How Can You Lean Into Productive Tension Today?
Choose the most audacious dream, creative project, or business goal you are currently pursuing. Take a piece of paper, split it down the middle, and write these two opposing headlines:
On the left side, write “Why This Is Completely Impossible.” On the right side, write “Why This Is Absolutely Inevitable.”
Pour your deepest doubts into the left column. Then answer them from the part of you that still believes this goal is worth pursuing. When you look at both sides together, do not rush to fix or erase the contradiction. Sit with the friction. Let yourself feel the strange power of believing in something while still acknowledging how difficult it may be.
Now, write like the wind. Explore how the sheer “impossibility” of your goal might free you from the fear of perfection. Then ask yourself how believing in its “inevitability” might give you the courage to take one meaningful step today.
Are You Willing to Coexist with Uncertainty to Discover What’s Next?
The world will tell us to be realistic, and that a wall of rejections is proof that it is time to stop. But creative lives are built by learning to coexist with uncertainty. We can let the impossibility of our goals keep us humble and sharp, while letting our belief in what might be possible keep us moving forward.
Do not fear the clash within your mind. Doubt does not have to be the enemy of belief. It can sharpen our questions, deepen our work, and send us searching for the next right move. What begins as uncertainty can become curiosity, and curiosity can become action.
Perhaps our breakthrough is not waiting for us on one side of the tug-of-war or the other. Perhaps it is born in the tension itself, in the moment we stop demanding certainty and become willing to discover what comes next.
