My pride and insecurity make it difficult for me to live in humility

By David McElroy · April 28, 2026

The most painful battles I fight are with myself.

I have occasional conflicts with other people, of course, but those are easier to resolve or to ignore. I have to live with myself all the time. I have to live with the person I’ve decided to become today, but I also have to live with various versions of myself from the past. And those differing versions of me can often fight each other for control.

I’ve decided not to be argumentative and angry with other people online. It’s been a conscious decision not to live that way anymore, even though I used to have vicious verbal battles with others, on social media and on message boards before that.

I’ve learned that this sort of vicious argument doesn’t help anyone. I’ve learned that acting in those ways often makes me ignore my own values. And I’ve learned that the toxicity I can spew in one of those battles hurts me more than it hurts the person at whom the words are directed.

But when I feel attacked by someone — as I do tonight — I want to strike back. I have a foolish need to defend my pride. And I can be insecure enough to believe I need to strike back — or else other people won’t think I’m able to prove myself right.

Part of me knows that I need to walk away from such attacks, but another part of me — the person who still thinks and feels the way I used to — is eager to strike back in self-righteous anger.

The toxic inner battle between these parts of me — the person I’ve chosen to be and the person I used to be — leaves me feeling painful inner conflict about who I really am.

For better or worse, I see my inner contradictions. I know I’m no better than anyone else. And I know that I have only two choices. I can keep fighting for the values I claim for myself — or I can betray my values and once again become the person I’ve decided I don’t want to be.

I don’t want to live that way anymore, although I used to be really good at it. Today, I just want to present the things that I believe are important and true — and let people accept them or not accept them.

I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to hurt anyone or feel the need to justify myself.

I don’t mind clarifying or explaining for those who don’t understand me and who would like to understand what I mean. But I have no patience with the sort of people who simply strike out in an unthinking way to make others look bad.

I’m struggling with this again tonight because someone attacked something I said online and I want to lash out at him.

I want to call him stupid. I want to point out that he ignored the plain meaning of what I said. I want to puncture his arrogance and show him that I’m smarter and more clever and morally superior. I want to show him — and anybody who’s watching the comments — that I’m right and he’s wrong. I want him to know he’s been beaten.

But I know that’s not who I am anymore.

I also know that this hateful and vicious and prideful part of me still lives inside. It’s still lurking beneath the surface, eager to come back out and do battle once again.

I can’t have it both ways. So the inner battle rages.

Most days, it’s relatively easy to live my values in this regard. To walk away from arguments which aren’t worth having. But every now and then, my pride and insecurity tell my humility to take a seat and let them do the fighting.

Today is one of those days.

I have to keep reminding myself that my real values are the ones I live out, not just the ones I claim in the abstract when the going is easy.

I’m not the man I want to be. Not yet. I know I’ll still be striving to become a better man on the day I die. And I know that every time I live my values instead of giving in to my old passions, I’m a little closer to being the man I want to be.

And the man I want to be is secure enough and loving enough to turn the other cheek and walk away in peace — not because I’m smarter or morally superior, but because it’s who I choose to be.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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