You can always feel rejection before it happens. You can feel it like a burning itch, starting at the tips of your fingers, working its way up to your hot face. It’s almost a relief to finally hear the news, and as the knots in your stomach unravel you can exhale and move on to the next steps, gathering what is left of your hopeful pride.

This semester I was one of the top candidates in the country for an extremely competitive, coveted summer internship. The internship was in New York City, and, after a three month process, I finally learned that I didn’t get it.

“We decided to go in another direction. You were a very strong candidate. You should think about applying again next summer," the voicemail said.

So what do we do when this happens? Maybe you’re like me, and you are so overdramatic that you create a magnificent complex in your mind about how this is the best thing ever and it’s going to change your life and everything that is ever meant to happen to you is a spawn of this, and—BAM. It’s over. Now you have to tell everyone you didn’t get it.

As an actress, and as a person who sees her whole life as an audition, I am, admittedly, way too hard on myself and either black and white, “win” things or “lose” things in my life. I have a plethora of experiences to draw upon involving rejection which have left me with a solid method of what to do when you don’t get what you want.

So, this is it: You move on. You never look back. You allow yourself 48 hours to feel bad and cry about it in your car a few times, and then you face forward, and you keep going.

You call people you love, you go out with your friends, and you make a conscious effort to enjoy the now, reminding yourself that happiness does not come from a destination, but as a measure of love from the people surrounding you in this moment.

And guess what? You are okay. You didn’t actually die because you didn’t get what you wanted. Your life is still happening around you, and you are safe, loved, and still on the right track to live your best life.

If you were fabulous before, you are fabulous now. This may be especially hard to believe without that company on your resume, but if you did not get this accomplishment, you are now filled with the fire and the passion to find a new, better opportunity.

I am especially drawn to the words of David Whyte, “What you plan for yourself is too small for you to live."

Of course, you could rationalize. You have to understand that the people interviewing you don’t know who you are. In an interview, they get maybe 40 minutes or less to judge and make an impression of you.

When you go into an audition, or an interview, or meet someone for the first time, they already have in their mind an impression of who they want you to be. And this goes for a lot of things in life, whether it be a job, or a romantic interest, or anything else that requires you to put yourself on the line.

In the narrow minds of the interviewer, they have constructed a character they are looking for, just like you have constructed the idea that this is the perfect job for you. See the parallel?

So, it is very rare that you will actually fit their mold. You are probably better, more exciting, more layered, more complex than what they are looking for, and that scares them. So they choose the safe choice, the one that lines up the most with what they want. Unfortunately, the interviewers will never know you as their intern, a person, or a friend. You may never get a chance to show them your amazing true potential, which definitely sucks.

Sometimes, you don’t even know your true potential. Sometimes, experiences like this are what give you the disappointment that turns to anger, which finally turns to your passion and drive you can use to discover your true potential.

Moving forward, you have two options. You can either find another opportunity, and then blow them away, breaking through their “ideal candidate mold” with your awesome self (which is pretty difficult but always possible). Or you can find a place that is right for you, and that has been looking for a person just like you. Sometimes places or people like this don’t even know you are what they’ve been looking for until you show up.

But yes, that kind of perfect fit is hard to find. And internships just suck. It’s not fair that our generation of college students are being asked to accomplish so much for our resumes before we even graduate.

Perfection doesn't exist anyway. So stop worrying about how you are going to get what you want. Stop trying to get the perfect internship, job, significant other, or whatever else society tells us we need to have in order to be happy.

Because if you are truly meant to do something, or end up somewhere, it will happen. Even if you take the most random, unexpected, roundabout way to get there, the journey might just be the best part of all.

I told myself that if I am truly meant to end up in NYC this summer of all summers, I will end up there. And guess what? I got another job. A fantastic, thrilling job that will most likely be way better for me and my career in the long run. I didn’t even know this job even existed and was possible until I failed. And I got an apartment. And I got my plane tickets to New York City. And as I am finishing writing this in my Manhattan apartment, I can tell myself that I made it.