Smack dab in the center of my Princeton University dorm room, I keep a very special slip of paper pinned to my bulletin board. It reads:

“'I think guitar groups are becoming passé.' – Record Company Executive in his 1962 rejection letter, one of many sent to the unsigned Liverpool-based band known as The Beatles.

In 1963, The Beatles became the biggest musical group in England.

In 1964, The Beatles became the biggest band in the world."

From daybreak to twilight—when gothic spires tickle the vermillion sky—I carry these words with me.

Especially at a university like Princeton, why would I allow rejection to get the best of me? This is the path I chose, and this is the path I would choose time and time again, if I had to do it all over. This path is not an easy one, but then again, I never wanted it to be.

Just years before founding Disney World, Walt Disney was fired by a news editor for "lack of imagination." Growing up, Albert Einstein was oftentimes called "mentally handicapped" by teachers who said he would amount to nothing. JK Rowling's "Harry Potter" was rejected by publishers 12 times. One rejection letter advised Rowling to "get a day job" because she had "no future in writing children's novels." The net worth of these individuals over their lifetimes? Sky-high. The look on their critics’ faces as they realized what buffoons they were? Priceless.

Naysayers are nothing. Live the life you've imagined. Apply for that ultra-competitive summer internship in Paris. Whether you wind up munching on a baguette in front of the Eiffel Tower or adding another tier to the growing tower of rejection letters in your dorm room, you’ll know that you put yourself out there. You lived.

When I open my inbox on Gmail, only to view a message saying, “Thank you for auditioning/applying! Unfortunately, we are unable to accept you at this time,” my mind automatically returns to this group of men from Liverpool, and I am full. The words on this paper have taught me not to fear rejection, but rather to embrace it as a sign from the universe that I am truly here.

With a zip code in the clouds, I will always be someone who doesn't take "no" for an answer—someone who relentlessly races after the infinitesimal glint of possibility in what the masses naïvely dub as the “impossible."

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..."

Listen to the boy from Liverpool. You're in good company, after all.