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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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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