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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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If you can’t change your life story, that narrative will become destiny

By David McElroy · November 3, 2018

The woman seemed tired, but that wasn’t surprising. It was after midnight and she was at work as a cashier at Walmart. There weren’t many people in the store. It was mostly employees stocking shelves and there were a very few late-night shoppers like me.

When I spoke to her, she didn’t look at me at first. She just responded briefly and went about her work of checking me out. It quickly occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t tired — at least not physically. Maybe she just didn’t care anymore.

She was about 45. She seemed to have forgotten how to smile. She did seem tired, but as I watched her, I thought it seemed more as though she was tired of life. Since there was nobody behind me, I tried to find out her story. It was quickly obvious that she didn’t mind talking. She simply didn’t care about much anymore.

She’s from a tiny town in southern Ohio that I’d never heard of. She said it was near Kentucky and she’s never lived anywhere else. She’s in this area briefly. The youngest of her three daughters ran off with a man and he abandoned her in Birmingham after she got pregnant.

So this mother has come down here to help her pregnant daughter figure out what to do. The daughter doesn’t want to return to their little town, but she can’t make it on her own. The mother is here because she wants to talk her daughter into coming home with her, but she has to work a job in the meantime, because she said they’re broke.

This woman’s face haunts me. I should be asleep right now, but I can’t sleep. I just keep seeing that face — and thinking about how much our faces reveal about our stories and about what we believe about ourselves.

I was fairly young when I first noticed that most rural people had a hard look to their faces. It wasn’t universally true, but I saw it often enough that I learned to associate a certain look with low income or rural life.

I saw that look when I first started working at newspapers. When I had to drive out to rural areas and talk with people who lived there, I kept seeing that look. The “city folks” who I normally dealt with — even in our small city of about 12,000 — didn’t have the look. I never figured out how people’s faces could tell so much.

I have a theory about it, but I can’t prove anything. I suspect that when a person believes certain things about his or her life, that becomes his or her story — and what the person believes ends up reflected on his or her face.

If you believe you’re smart and educated and resourceful, your belief is going to be reflected in your face. You’re going to carry yourself differently. You’re going to dress differently. And the things you believe somehow affect the set of your face, so your muscles will fall into the pattern of reflecting a look of affluence and confidence.

If you believe that you’re a victim and that nothing you do is going to turn out right, you’re going to learn to stop caring. You’re not going to take care of yourself in the same way. Your standards about the people you allow into your life will fall. And as you have less confidence and less hope, the muscles of your face will be set in a pattern — the same one I saw on this woman’s face tonight.

At one point, she even expressed her story, in a roundabout way, while she was talking about having to work here to earn enough money to survive and then talk her daughter into going back to Ohio before the baby is born.

“We ain’t never had anything,” she said with no emotion, “and we never will.”

That was her story — and everything about her life and her face and the way she carried herself screamed that story. And because she believes that story, it has become her destiny. Her life isn’t going to change.

In an interview I heard Thursday night, a psychologist quoted writer Mo Willems, who wrote in one of his books, “If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”

The entire point of the interview I was listening to was that we control our lives through our stories — the interpretations we give to the facts of our lives. If you find yourself somewhere you don’t want to be, the first thing to do is to change the story of your life. Until you change your story — which is really just an interpretation of all that’s happened to you — nothing can change for you.

If you believe life has infinite possibilities, you’re going to keep pushing forward to find them. If you believe you’re stuck where you are — for whatever reason — you’re going to be stuck until you find a way to change what you believe about it.

It’s easy for me to see how this applies to people such as the woman in the store tonight, but it’s harder to apply to myself. You and I aren’t like her. We’re far smarter and more educated and sophisticated. Our stories are reasonable and rational. We’re not limiting ourselves. That’s what we tell ourselves anyway.

So if this doesn’t apply to us, why do we sometimes notice we’re putting ourselves back into positions where we’ve been before? Why do we swear we will never let a particular type of person into our lives again, but we end up doing something similar without even noticing until it’s too late.

I’ve realized lately that I’ve allowed a narcissist to become a major figure in my life. I thought I was prepared to avoid such people now and avoid them, but I somehow put myself into a position of needing this one. How did I do that? I’m having to think a lot about that and it’s not something I’m happy to admit.

You’re almost certainly no different. You know things need to change in your life. Or maybe you find yourself falling into a pattern you had sworn you wouldn’t follow again. Why? You have some belief about yourself and your story that’s leading you to make decisions you say you don’t want.

Nothing will change for you until you change your story.

I’ve become aware — again — in the last few days that some things about my story still need to change.

I hope that I’m self-aware enough — and that you’re self-aware enough — for us to change our lives in ways they need to change. I’m hopeful about myself, but I might be fooling myself.

I doubt the woman from the store tonight will ever change. She knows her story. She’s comfortable being that person. It’s probably all she knows how to be. She’s tired of life — and nothing will ever get any better for her — all because of her limiting beliefs.

Note: The photo above is of a real mother of three from a poor town in Appalachia. Her look reminds me of what I saw in the face of the woman tonight.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: beliefs, poverty, psychology, story

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It was too cloudy last night for me to take a phot It was too cloudy last night for me to take a photo of the lunar eclipse, so I missed the beautiful red image that I saw from others. But the sky overhead tonight is crystal clear — and the moon seemed especially bright — so I snapped a shot anyway. I don’t really have the right lens for this since I have to blow it up massively when I shoot at 240mm. Surprisingly, this image was made at 1/250th of a second at f/6.3 and ISO 250. I’d like to have a longer lens for such a shot, but it’s not worth the money since I’d rather use it. #nature #naturephotography #sky #moon
The aftermath of sunset looked soft and pastel Tue The aftermath of sunset looked soft and pastel Tuesday evening. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I didn’t have my “real camera” with me, but I didn’t have my “real camera” with me, but the iPhone gives you a sense of how colorful the sky was just a moment ago right before the sun slipped beneath the horizon. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
The Saturday evening sunset punches through the he The Saturday evening sunset punches through the heavy clouds sitting just over the horizon, just enough to create a spectacular orange show as the world spins toward another night of darkness. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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I caught just the very end of sunset through the t I caught just the very end of sunset through the trees behind the restaurant where I’m eating Tuesday evening. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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I just caught the very end of sunset, but I loved I just caught the very end of sunset, but I loved how the fading colors looked behind the evening clouds. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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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?”

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