A rejected paper is always painful. But if you have a failed experiment experiment or a disproved theory there is always the silver lining that you have learned something you didn't expect. A good scientist should care more about finding out the truth than about having been right. A failed experiment or disproved theory is one step closer to the truth.

The key to taking this attitude is to bring out one's curiosity.  See "Tim Harford: Facts Without Curiosity are Dead."

This year, I have written many posts touching on being human, on being a scientist and on being an economist. Here are the main ones: 

• Believe in Yourself
• Breaking the Chains
• Leaving a Legacy
• My Objective Function
• The Unmaking
• John Locke on the Mandate of Heaven
• Economics Needs to Tackle All of the Big Questions in the Social Sciences
• Defining Economics
• Does the Journal System Distort Scientific Research?
• Let's Set Half a Percent as the Standard for Statistical Significance