Happiness and success elude me unless I’m doing something I love

By David McElroy · September 11, 2020

I don’t really want to sell you a house. I wish I did.

You know how you sometimes admit something to yourself that you’ve been trying to hide? I had one of those moments this week — when I couldn’t even try to lie to myself.

I was waiting inside this nice $425,000 house for a potential buyer to arrive. I had arrived 15 minutes early and had the house to myself. I decided to record an impromptu video that I could use as a promotion. I started recording about half a dozen times but stopped in disgust each time.

“I don’t want to sell houses,” I suddenly said out loud. And I was glad no one was there to hear me.

For the last five or six years, I’ve felt as though my life was on hold. I felt like someone treading water. I’ve worked in real estate — because it was a convenient opportunity — but I’ve hated work every day. And it makes me long for the days when I was excited about work instead.

Earlier this year, I had decided to leave my job and take a chance on things I care about more, but this entire coronavirus mess made that a non-starter. It just didn’t seem feasible with as much financial uncertainty as we were facing.

I spend half of my time running the office operations for a real estate company. I’m free to sell in the other half of my time. I’ve actually become really good at what I do, which is almost annoying since I dislike it so much.

If a friend wants to buy a house, I can actually enjoy that process, because it’s someone I’m excited about helping. I love helping people I like. But if it’s another random stranger — who’s probably delusional from watching idiotic and unrealistic real estate shows on television — it’s hard to make myself care. It’s hard to even make a call, even if it’s someone I know wants to buy or sell.

I’ve been thinking about this again Friday night because I found myself getting excited about a project that I would care about. It’s actually a real estate project, but it’s not something simple and pragmatic like matching up buyers with available houses. It’s a development project that I’ve dreamed about many times.

It’s a project that I would care about. It’s something I would be excited about. It’s something that should be far more profitable than what I’m doing now. But it would require a partner who could sell investors and raise the money. I have good ideas and I’m a good project-builder, but I’m terrible at selling people on things that seem obvious to me.

There’s an ornery part of me that wants to shout, “If you can’t see why this is a great idea, I’m wasting my time with you!” And that isn’t very diplomatic, much less successful

This isn’t anything new. I’ve encountered this obstacle time and time again in my life. It’s something I’ve never really figured out. I feel like somebody who’s invented an amazing space ship that can take people to another planet successfully and gracefully — but I forgot to figure out how to build the booster rocket to get it off the ground.

The world is a playground of exciting and possibly profitable projects to pursue, but I’m doing something that I hate every day instead. I’m not sure how I allowed this to happen. It wasn’t that long ago when I was making well over six figures and enjoying what I was doing. It’s humiliating and it’s humbling to have lost that and somehow fallen to this point in life.

I have to find a way to get back to doing something I’m passionate about and that offers big rewards for success. In some ways, I feel like Job from ancient Hebrew scriptures. I had everything take away from me — for reasons I don’t understand — and I’m waiting for the nightmare to finally end. If God and Satan had a bet about me, I’m ready for it to be over.

In the meantime, I’ll sell you a house. I’ll keep working to make the company I administer more profitable and competitive. I’ll do what I have to do. If I like you, I’ll enjoy helping you. If I don’t know you, I’ll help you and try to pretend I care. If I can make myself call you.

But I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I’m not very good at pretending to be someone I’m not. And I’ve gotten to the point that I can’t even look into a video camera and pretend to care about finding new clients.

I’ve somehow dug a hole for myself — and I haven’t been able to find a way to climb out.

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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?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

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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