– a Talesmith Short by Rajesh Muthuraj
Ravi stared at the cracked screen of his phone while sitting on the edge of his bed. It was 6:12 a.m. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but sleep had left him anyway.
Three rejection emails waited in his inbox. He didn’t open them. He didn’t need to. The subject lines said enough.
We regret to inform you…
After careful consideration…
At this time, we’ve decided to move forward with other candidates…
He dropped the phone face-down and rubbed his eyes. Thirty-two years old. Two years since he’d left his stable job to try building something of his own. Savings thinning. Family politely worried. Friends quietly moving ahead.
That morning, his mother knocked on the door. “Tea,” she said, holding out a cup.
He took it and forced a smile.
She sat on the chair across from him. “You have a call today, right? The logistics company?”
Ravi hesitated. “Had. They replied last night.”
She raised her eyebrows gently. “And?”
He sighed. “Bad news.”
She nodded, as if she had expected that. Then she asked something strange.
“Do you want the good news first… or the bad news?”
He blinked. “I just told you the bad news.”
“That’s one piece,” she said calmly. “Not the whole story.”
Ravi stared into his tea. “What’s the good news supposed to be?”
She leaned back. “You woke up again today willing to try.”
He almost laughed. “That doesn’t pay bills.”
“No,” she agreed. “But yesterday, you almost didn’t wake up willing at all.”
That landed heavier than he expected. She continued, “Last year, after your third rejection in a row, you stayed in bed for two days. Remember?”
He did.
“And today?” she said. “You checked your mail at six in the morning.”
He frowned. “Because I was anxious.”
“Nope, because you still care.”
Ravi didn’t reply.
She sipped her tea. “Now here’s the real bad news.”
He looked at her.
“If you stop now,” she said softly, “this becomes the final chapter. Not a difficult middle. An ending.”
The room was quiet.
“And the good news?” he asked.
She smiled. “You’re still in the middle.”
Later that afternoon, Ravi sat in a tiny café with his notebook open. He wasn’t sure why he’d come. Habit, maybe. Or stubbornness.
Across the table sat Meera, an old colleague who had agreed to meet him after months.
He told her everything. The failed proposals. The shrinking bank balance. The feeling that he’d made a huge mistake.
She listened, stirring her coffee.
Then she said, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
Ravi snorted. “You too?”
She grinned. “Bad news first. Your current approach isn’t working.”
He nodded slowly.
“Good news,” she said. “That means you’re free to change it.”
He looked up.
“You’re pitching like someone asking permission,” she continued. “Not like someone solving a problem. Your work is solid. Your positioning isn’t.”
Ravi blinked. No one had said that so plainly.
She slid his notebook back toward him. “Rewrite your offer. Narrow your focus. Call the three clients who almost said yes instead of chasing ten new ones.”
He hesitated. “What if that fails too?”
Meera shrugged. “Then you collect better data.”
“That’s the good news?”
“That’s the great news,” she said. “People who quit never get new data. They just keep the old disappointment.”
That night, Ravi opened the rejection emails properly.
One mentioned, Your proposal was strong, but pricing clarity was missing.
Another said, We liked your thinking, but we weren’t sure how the rollout would work.
The third: Let’s reconnect in a few months.
He read them twice. They weren’t verdicts. They were instructions.
He opened his laptop. Adjusted his proposal template. Rewrote his first paragraph. Added a simple timeline. Changed the subject line for his next pitch.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No sudden victory. No phone ringing off the hook.
Just… movement.
Before sleeping, his mother passed by the door.
He called out, “I figured it out.”
She smiled. “Which one?”
“The good news.”
“And the bad?”
He thought for a second.
“It’s still hard.”
She nodded. “That usually stays.”
Weeks later, Ravi didn’t suddenly become successful. But he stopped refreshing his inbox every ten minutes. He worked on things he could control. He followed up. He learned to ask sharper questions. He stayed in the middle.
Because that’s the quiet truth most people don’t say out loud: The bad news is that trying is exhausting, uncertain, and slow.
The good news is that every person you admire once stood exactly there; tired, unsure, tempted to quit, doing one more small, unremarkable thing instead.
So, if someone asks you, “What do you want to hear first—good news or bad news?”
Remember this: The bad news is… you haven’t made it yet. The good news? You’re still here.
And that means the story isn’t finished.
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