Don’t let one “no” echo louder than ten yeses.

A refusal has better acoustics than approval. It arrives sharp, repeats itself at night, and crowds out the ordinary yeses that got you this far. Your memory is not being unfair on purpose. It is wired to flag threats, and a rejection registers as one.

Count the yeses out loud sometime this week: the friend who answered, the coach who put you in, the teacher who read your draft twice. Writing that list somewhere is not vanity. It is balancing a record that keeps itself crooked without any help from you.