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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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I’ve struggled to finally believe there’s more than one ‘right way’

By David McElroy · June 25, 2019

Is there a wrong way to fold a bath towel? For people like me, that’s a trick question. There’s only one right way. Every other way but mine is wrong.

I was 10 years old when I decided how towels ought to be folded. My sisters and I did the laundry in our household — they were 8 and 6 — and I decided that our inconsistent ways of folding towels had to change. Our current towels were neatly stacked, but there was no system about how they were folded or turned in the stack.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I thought they looked best. I talked with my sisters about it. Then I settled on one particular method. From that moment on, that became the way to fold towels in our household. It wasn’t just “our way.” It was “the right way.”

A lot of us have preferences about such things, but not everybody internalizes that his way — of thinking, of doing things, of believing — is the one and only way. This was a pattern of my perfectionistic thinking for most of my life — and it’s still a struggle for me to realize there can be other ways that are just as right as my own.

Most of us have egos which need to believe we’re right, but this is something more. At least for me. This is the deep fear that if I deviate from whatever is correct — however that’s defined — something terrible will happen to me.

My father was the source of “the right way” about almost everything when I was a child. There was almost nothing about which he wouldn’t dictate how things had to be done.

The clothes in my closets and my drawers had to be arranged as he dictated. My bed had to be made exactly in accordance with his method. Even when I swept the driveway, I had to use a push broom instead of a regular house broom. Even though I could go more quickly with my method, he would rage at me and yell about why his method was the right way to sweep.

I learned very early that there was a right way to do everything. I learned that there was a right way for me to think and act and look. I got into trouble for laughing at things which he didn’t believe I should find funny. I would get lectures if I heard and liked music which he didn’t like.

The message I received — loud and clear — is that the only way for me to be acceptable as a person (and to avoid punishment, in many cases) was to learn the correct way about everything and then to act in these perfect ways.

This was so internalized that I didn’t realize there was any other way to think. I never questioned any of this. I just knew that if I did everything “the right way,” my life was better. And as my father barked his criticism of me about such things, I learned to bark criticism to others and about others.

I learned to push my sisters to conform to the right ways when we were young. I viciously criticized others — mostly to myself but often to other people — who didn’t know the right ways which I had been taught.

And like a machine which had been programmed with this belief and this way of acting, I took this attitude with me on autopilot into adulthood.

I have a complicated relationship with “the right way” today. There are ways in which my right way is absolutely, objectively superior. And there are circumstances — such as when someone is working for me — when I’m reasonable to insist that things be done my way.

But for much of my adult life, I lived the tortured existence of one who desperately wanted to control everything and everybody. I wanted to find some way that I could reshape the world in precisely my image of perfect order and perfect action. I never said that. I never consciously knew that. I never said my way was the only way.

But I lived my life with a screaming voice inside which tortured me for not forcing everybody to do everything my way. It was terrifying — and it was all the worse because I didn’t realize what I was doing.

I used to understand personality as being “what a person is,” but I’ve come to a far deeper understanding in the last few years. We are certainly born with some preferences, but much of what we become — and which we consider our personality — is simply our reaction to the world in which we are trained. Much of the personality is the way we learn to deal with the chaos and dysfunction which we encounter in the world. Much of it is the way in which we learn to get our needs met.

My need to be right and my need to reform others into doing things my way aren’t just part of who I am that came along with my DNA. I was born to a father who punished me for being anything except what he wanted me to be, so I learned this way of living from my environment. It was a survival skill. The problem is that I didn’t realize that — and I continued acting in this way even after I was away from the person who required it.

The Enneagram personality typing system says there are nine basic types of personalities. Although you can read the nine types (and the 27 subtypes) and find your own behavior, that doesn’t mean “this is who you are.” It means, “This is how I learned to cope with the world.”

I’ve come to understand that much of our growth is unlearning our defense mechanisms. Even though every defense mechanism comes with practical advantages in life, the truth is that those familiar behaviors which served us so well as children end up being our biggest weaknesses.

And we have trouble seeing that — because we think this behavior is “just who we are.”

My path toward learning that it was OK for other people to think and behave differently than I do was very difficult. It started in the area of political thinking — when I saw the logic that other people had the right to behave in ways I didn’t like — and it has slowly grown from there.

Today, I’m perfectly happy letting other people live life on their terms, even when I disagree with them. I might strongly disagree with them. I might hate some of their behaviors. But as long as they don’t try to interfere with my own freedom to live my life, I’m willing to let them make their own mistakes — as long as they’ll let me make mine.

There are limits to how far I can go with this in my personal life, but I’ve decided that’s reasonable. I have standards about what I want from the people around me — and those standards are more specific as the position is closer to me.

For instance, I can get along with random strangers in public even if they’re Nazis or racists (or worse). I’m less likely to accept any of those sorts of attitudes and beliefs among those I count as friends, though. And the closer someone is to me, the more I want that person’s beliefs and values to align with mine.

That doesn’t mean I want to go change people, but it does mean that I want to choose those closest to me from among those rare people who see the world in much the way that I do.

I will probably never get it out of my system completely that there is one right way to do everything. I will probably spend the rest of my life having to remind myself not to criticize myself for not being perfect. I will probably always have to remind myself to be kind and loving toward those who see certain things differently than I do.

I’m not sure there’s any way around that. The old programming is too deep to completely change.

But I’m consciously aware of my old tendency and I’m determined to be kinder to myself and to others. I’ll never be perfect — even about not insisting on us all being perfect — but at least I won’t insist that we fold and stack towels my way. Not anymore.

I’m still learning how to be an empathetic and loving person. That’s one thing I still want to get right.

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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
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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
This was sunset just east of Birmingham Wednesday This was sunset just east of Birmingham Wednesday evening behind the restaurant where I had dinner. #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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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?”

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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