You must walk away from the past before you open door to the future

By David McElroy · May 31, 2018

I quit one of my jobs today.

It’s really more accurate to say that I made official what I had already planned to do. I let people in my department know that I’ll be gone at the end of June. I introduced them to the guy I’m recommending to take my place. So now it’s official. I’ll be gone from here in a month.

When a long-time friend — who was the chair of the computer science department — called to offer me this job almost five years ago, I first turned it down. I’m ashamed to say that it felt beneath me to work part-time for a college overseeing computer labs and helping students with their problems.

But I was broke and desperate. I hadn’t figured out how to transition from my previous days as a political consultant. I was looking for a big opportunity, but none had come my way.

I’m grateful now for a small opportunity that offered me a lifeline while I needed it.

Honestly, it was the easiest job I’ve ever had, but I was well-paid for a part-time job.

It could be frustrating at times in the beginning. Two of the four labs I oversaw had aging Dell computers that required constant troubleshooting and repair. I quickly became an expert at replacing power supplies, fixing dead fans and swapping out misbehaving hard drives.

Things got easier as all the labs were slowly upgraded with newer equipment. Then it got even easier after one of the labs was converted to iMacs last year. (I can work on Windows PCs, but I strongly prefer Macs — just as I can eat bologna but prefer filet mignon.)

When I took the job, I was pretty sure I’d be there only a few months until I found something better. But the path to something better has been a long time in coming. I’m still not where I need to be, but I’m slowly getting there.

When I leave for the last time in a month, I’m going to miss some people here. I’ve had some wonderful co-workers, but I think I’ll miss the students the most. Not all of them, of course, but I’ve run across some amazing people — including the guy who I’m pretty sure will take my place. (He’s actually more technically qualified than I am and he has a better attitude about helping ignorant people, so I figure it won’t be long before the department is grateful that I quit.)

But my focus is on the future. I’ve been working at a real estate company — doing operations and marketing — for about 18 months and then I got my own real estate license six months ago. I’ll be working in real estate full-time for the time being, but I still expect that to be a stepping stone to something else.

I didn’t want to take this job when it was offered. I also didn’t want to add the real estate job when it was offered. I further resisted the idea of getting my real estate license for about a year.

I’m not good at things that I don’t want to do, but I know I have to keep moving forward — taking opportunities — in order to get back to where I once was financially. If I stay with real estate for long, I’m confident that it will make me wealthy. If I find the right other opportunity, though, I’ll make myself wealthy in a way more consistent with my personality and natural skills. I have an intense need to create art, but I have to get paid well.

When I started this job, I couldn’t wait to get away from it. Now, I’m mostly thankful for the stability it provided me when I was desperate not so long ago.

It’s time to walk away from this place, because there are other things to do and other places to go. I’m excited about the future, but I’ll always be thankful for my time in HSB 450.

This place has been good to me, but it’s time to move on.

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Lucy just made possible friends with two little girls, but the girls are more enthusiastic so far than she is. Joy, 5, and Hope, 6, just moved in with their grandmother on my street. I didn’t know this, but while Lucy and I were walking, I heard a tiny voice from the darkness cry out, “Hi, doggie!” It took me a minute to figure out where the voice was coming from, but once I did, their grandmother, Rose, came out onto the porch and gave the girls permission to pet Lucy, which delighted the girls. Joy said she wasn’t allowed off her porch since she had socks and no shoes. Lucy was shy, but allowed them to pet her a bit, while the girls marveled about how soft she is. I hope Lucy will let them be her friends. It’s a joy to see how far Lucy has come since she came to live with me. She’s nothing like the “special needs dog” who I was told would never get close to anybody.

I’ve never taken YouTube very seriously as a publishing platform — not enough to do anything more than post the occasional random video — but I’ve started laying a foundation for doing more with it in the future. I created and uploaded some simple branding to my longstanding YouTube channel this weekend and I’ll be doing more in the future. The channel has only about 300 subscribers, so if you feel so inclined, I would appreciate it if you’d subscribe. As with all things on social media, subscriber counts and views help me to get future content seen more easily by others. Click here to visit the channel.

Don‘t appeal to any piece of paper or any tradition as the source of your freedom. You don’t have “constitutional rights.” You have natural human rights. If you appeal to a document as the source of your rights, you are admitting that politicians can come along and amend your rights at any time. A right is yours because you are a human being, but it means nothing if you don’t have the means and the willingness to defend it. The sad truth today is that almost all of us are at the mercy of politicians who ignore our natural rights — and they get away with it only because they have educated our fellow humans to believe we have no legitimate choice other than obedience. Rebellion without the ability to win is insane — so don’t make this argument to police, politicians or judges — but it costs you nothing to come to a clear-eyed understanding today of what your rights really mean and where they come from.

Spring always reminds me how glorious blue skies and green leaves can be. When I was in the second grade, Mrs. Arnold chastised me for using those colors together. She said they didn’t match. Mrs. Arnold had very specific rules about which colors could be used together. We couldn’t deviate from her rules. When I used green and blue together in one of my class drawings, she forced me to do it over, since she said those colors shouldn’t be used together. I was a polite and obedient child, but I asked her why they didn’t match — since God used them together in nature. She was exasperated and told me to follow her rules. So when I see glorious beauty which mixes green and blue — such as this photo I took just outside my office Friday afternoon — it always reminds me of Mrs. Arnold. It reminds me that she was wrong. And it’s a good reminder for us all. There are established rules about a lot of things. Many of those are good rules. But if an expert tells you something and you know he’s wrong, you might need to take a chance. He might be just as mistaken as Mrs. Arnold was.

In the coming months and years, we’re going to need inventive and productive people pursuing things that matter. We’re going to need smart and self-directed men and women who will find ideas and create enterprises that will help bypass the political class and build a new and better society. But everything I see in media right now seems geared toward telling people how to entertain and amuse themselves. The stories are full of advice about what to binge on Netflix and what games you should be playing while you’re stuck at home. We desperately need to ignore this advice and be looking toward building new futures instead. Being passive consumers got us where we are today. It’s time that we reclaim our former role — the one that made this country wealthy — as productive and free people who build far more than we consume. This could be a great opportunity for those who will take it. Turn off Netflix. Put down the video game controller. We need new ideas, new achievements, new goals — not more coach potatoes. This is the time to be thinking and creating and planning for the future that you and I both want.

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