The birds were having a singing contest, and the crow came to sign up. But the owl who was in charge of the registration turned it down. The reason was that the crow’s singing voice was too difficult to hear; furthermore, it was not auspicious for the crow to always be dressed in black, affecting the audience’s mood.
After being rejected, the crow found the magpie, the host of the singing contest, and asked it to go to the owl to accommodate itself and give itself a chance to sing on stage, but the magpie used similar reasons as the owl, also rejected the crow.
Faced with the cruel rejection, the crow was undaunted, convinced that its song could be accepted and enjoyed by birds. But he knew that if he didn’t have the chance to sing in the competition, his “golden voice” would be buried forever.
So the crow confidently approached the phoenix, one of the contest judges, and asked it to help convince the owl not to turn itself away from the contest. Who knows? The phoenix also said coldly: “You do not go to the river to look at themselves, you look like that, can you be on the elegant stage? And your singing voice, like the sound of human wailing, screaming people’s bones, I think you die this heart as soon as possible.”
Once again, the crow faced a merciless rejection, but it always insisted on its belief that it must convince the owl to give itself a chance.
In the following days, the crow did not slacken off in the slightest. While practising its voice, it repeatedly visited the owl, the magpie and the phoenix. Still, these birds, who had the power to decide the singing competition, rejected it again and again mercilessly.
After suffering a hundred and one rejections, the crow once again knocked on the door of the owl’s office. Seeing that the crow was about to break the threshold of the office, the owl had no choice but to agree to give the crow a chance to appear on stage.
The singing contest was held as scheduled. When the crow got on the stage, there was a hush of whistles. The crow knew that it was some audience members cheering themselves down. But the crow didn’t let these bad feelings get to it; it had only one thought: to sing its song and prove to all the authority figures what a big mistake they had made in rejecting it.
When the raven finished its song, the whole audience resounded with warm and endless applause. Owls, magpies and others even ran to the stage and warmly embraced it, congratulating it on the success of its singing.
Through ongoing efforts, the crow finally became the most famous singer in the bird kingdom with the nightingale.
Like the crow, we humans should have the courage to face the relentless rejection, hold the firm belief that “there is no permanent failure, only temporary unsuccessfulness”, treat setbacks as an inevitable factor in the success process, and tolerate their existence.
