David McElroy

I can tell you what’s wrong with everybody I know.

Actually, I’m so good at spotting others’ flaws that I can do it in people I don’t even know. That person is a terrible driver. He’s rude. She has horrible grammar. He won’t learn from his mistakes. She’s too stupid to do her job.

I’m humiliated to admit this, partly because I’m the biggest hypocrite I know. Not all the time, but sometimes.

I catch myself viciously criticizing others for something as they drive, but I catch myself doing the same thing — and finding a quick way to justify myself — a day or two later. I tell myself somebody is a failure — or at least not achieving what he could — because he won’t live up to my idea of how he should pursue his life, but I regularly make the same mistakes and try to justify those mistakes when I do them.

My only consolation is that almost everybody I know does the same thing. I realize I’m trying to let myself off the hook by saying, “Well, everybody does it,” but it’s true. The question is why I do it — and why all of us sometimes do it.

It’s because we’re all terrified we aren’t good enough — that we’re not worthy of love.

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