Can I talk myself into not wanting great things I fear I’ll never have?

By David McElroy · October 19, 2017

It’s been almost 30 years since I figured out — much to my surprise — that what I really wanted more than anything else vocationally was to be an artist. And I’ve spent most of the years since then explaining to myself over and over why this isn’t possible.

After enough reasonable explanation, I start getting numb to what I want. I forget what it feels like. I turn my attention elsewhere and tell myself that realistic people do other things. Maybe I can make filmmaking a hobby if I do really well for awhile at something I hate.

Doesn’t that make sense? I can make a few hundred thousand dollars a year as a real estate broker. How about that? Isn’t that more realistic? Sure. Why not. I’ll do that. It all makes so much sense. And it sounds so responsible.

And so I start burying what I know — every now and then, at least — that I want. Until somebody comes along and pokes a stick at something I try hard not to look at.

That’s what happened today.

I got a message from a friend early this morning asking whether I was working on any films right now. I always have at least half a dozen projects at various stages of development and one of them fit the sort of project he was curious about.

I explained the idea to him. It’s one of my favorite ideas and it’s been kicking around at various stages of script development for about 10 years. It would be funny and would also be interesting social commentary. It should be easy to understand for audiences and thus accessible to a wide enough range of people to give it a shot at being popular. Best of all, it seems to be within my capabilities as a filmmaker.

But instead of just being interested in the idea, my friend asked if I had ever considered a particular method of raising money to make a series of films. He had an idea. It was something I’d never thought about. It might work. It might be crazy. I have no idea. But my friend suggested that it might be realistic to raise about $50 million with this idea.

What I felt next is the interesting part of the story.

For a decade, I’ve wanted to make this film and others. But I’ve slowly convinced myself that it’s not that big a deal. I’ve slowly convinced myself that I must not want it very much. In fact, I want it so little that it would be better to be “realistic” and work in real estate. Or something like that.

But when my friend threw the crazy idea of $50 million at me, everything changed. I felt passion for making some movies. It sounded crazy to spend another day doing anything else. If I had $50 million — or $10 million or even a few hundred thousand dollars — I’d make a movie and then try to find the money to make another. And another. And another.

I have things I want to say. I have funny ideas that I want to see on the screen. I have movies that I would like to make for specific people and for myself. If I had the money, I would joyfully work hard to make the best art I could possibly make — and it wouldn’t be work as much as it would be the passion of sharing the ideas and emotions and humor that I love with others.

When my friend mentioned this crazy possibility, I wanted it badly. Not because I wanted the money. (Although the money would be nice, too.) I wanted it because making these films would be an expression of myself, not drudgery that I was doing to hope to be worthy of a future family who needed my financial support.

I have no idea whether what my friend mentioned today is possible or not. That’s not even the point here. The point is that when I thought filmmaking was possible, I knew I wanted it. And I knew I wanted to run away from doing anything else.

What about you?

What do you want that you are trying to convince yourself that you don’t want? What is it that you believe you can’t have? What need or desire are you repressing because you think it can’t happen?

Try this. For the next 60 seconds, just close your eyes and imagine what your life would be like if you really could have whatever it is you want. What does it look like? What does it sound like? What physical sensations come with it? Imagine that it’s real. Feel it vividly.

Now how does that make you feel?

If you allowed yourself to imagine the feelings honestly, you now know whether it’s worth setting your fears aside. In that moment of imagining, what did your heart tell you? Do you still want it? Or is your life just fine without it?

If your heart is fine without you having this thing, then move on. Quit looking back. If it doesn’t matter that much to you, why waste your time and energy?

But if your heart knew in your moment of imagination that you really do want it, then stop lying to yourself. If it’s something about which you have a choice, make the choice to give yourself the future you want and need.

I need someone to remind me of this every day, because most days I’m scared and my Lizard Brain is trying to talk me into being “realistic.” (I hate that word.)

My Lizard Brain thinks it’s a great idea to be a real estate broker. My Heart knows there’s no direction other than making films. But my Lizard Brain and my Heart are still fighting it out.

I hope my Heart can win, whether I can raise $50 million or not.

Share on Social Networks

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

Related Posts