The voice of Mr Collins

If, like me, you enjoy dipping into the British Classics, chances are you’re familiar with Jane Austen’s gem Pride & Prejudice. One of the more minor characters, a Mr Collins, at one point makes an offer of marriage to feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet. Since Mr Collins is described as “one of the stupidest men in England”, among other unflattering expressions, it goes without saying that she turns him down, to which he then responds something along these lines:

“My dear Miss Eliza, you should consider that it is by no means certain that another such offer will ever be made to you.”

I have in the past blogged about facing rejection and how we might deal with it, as freelancers and people in general. Most freelance writers seem to be given ample opportunity to practise handling rejection with grace (or grumpiness or any emotion we can muster), but whether we’re as apt at doling it out is far from certain. In fact, most of us might actually have the voice of Mr Collins in our heads, telling us that if we don’t say yes to what’s offered – even if we don’t want it – no one will ever employ us, love us, marry us or, add your own verb, again.

If we turn down work – for whatever reason – what will be the consequences? Will an editor or publisher contact us again? Will they remember us favourably, or remember us at all? In an era when many of us are scrambling for work, turning down work becomes a complete no-no. It’s easy to feel compelled to take on all sorts of work out of the simple fear of not having any, without considering a) if we are qualified to carry out the work to our highest standard, or b) if we have time to do a good job, or, most importantly, c) is this something we really want to be doing.

Over the years, I have on occasion heard “the voice of Mr Collins” particularly loudly and it’s compelled me to fuck up most royally, because I failed to stop and take all of the above into consideration. I’ve said yes to jobs I couldn’t complete because I didn’t have the expertise, I’ve taken on plenty of jobs I knew I wouldn’t like and firmly regretted it afterwards and, probably worst of all, I’ve taken on jobs I couldn’t complete on time, ruining good working relationships and losing a lot of cash. That’s when I began to combat Mr Collins’s sentiments in earnest.

Sometimes it’s necessary to “hang out with Mr Collins” for a little while – you might take on a short job or two you don’t want, spend some time with people you’d rather not be with – but for god’s sake, don’t marry the man! There’s no need. How do you get over the fear of being the one who does the rejecting, actually turning down what you know you don’t want, whether it’s to do with work or another area of your life?

Remember Mr Darcy? Exactly. If we give into the fear that nothing better than what we don’t want will ever come into our lives, we will undoubtedly manage to convince ourselves that marrying Mr Collins is a good bet and we’ll miss out on our Mr/Ms Darcy. We’ll take on the boring job, because it’s better than nothing, but why would nothing come our way? If we’re open to good opportunities, if we stand our ground and say no when we mean it, good opportunities tend to come knocking. And if they don’t? Well, you, yourself can also do the knocking. Just don’t open the door to Mr Collins.