I was just smitten by Pamela Jo Klinger, when I was in first grade. For a six-year-old romantic, she was the perfect woman. Curly auburn hair. Freckles. Saddle oxfords. She could climb the monkey bars in a lady-like way. And, she was good at math. What's not to like?

Problem is, Pamela Jo Klinger didn't reciprocate my feelings. Unrequited love at six is every bit as painful as unrequited love at ... later. So I did what you would expect. I cried.

Cried to my teacher. Cried to my friends. Cried to my mother... "Pamela Jo Klinger doesn't like me."

My mother was cool, but wise. "Jimmy, if she doesn't like you, she doesn't like you. Maybe she doesn't know you the way I do (and everyone who does like you). Or maybe she just likes different kinds of people than you. But you can't make her like you."

Last week we worked really hard on a proposal for a project that seemed to be tailor made for us. It included branding...web design...a little bit of video. We had lots of references the client should have known and been impressed by. We sent them a pdf proposal, chalk full of links. It had some cool web sites. It had some awesome branding case studies. It had bios of our team and our technical partners. We thought it should have been a slam dunk.

Today, we learned that we didn't get the gig. So, we looked at ourselves. Our freckles. Our grace on the monkey bars. Our math aptitude. How pretty we sing. How well we draw with our crayons. And we cried. It hurt our feelings.

But one thing's for sure. You can only do what you can do. You can only be what you are. And at the end of the day...

you can't make Pamela Jo Klinger like you.