I struggle to love a flawed world because I struggle to love myself

By David McElroy · October 5, 2026

It’s hard for me to love other people. It’s even harder for me to love myself.

I was driving home from work Monday evening and I had just angrily hung up the phone. A woman had called me from a company that did some work at my house a few years ago. I didn’t like the way the company was handling its business with me, but it was nothing personal with the woman.

The thing that annoyed me wasn’t her fault. She was just reading a script. She was doing her job. But I was in a bad mood — and I took out my frustrations on her.

I wasn’t nasty or rude, but I certainly wasn’t kind or loving.

As I drove the rest of the way down I-459 toward home, I stewed in my irritation, but my annoyance quickly turned toward myself. I wasn’t upset with that woman or her company.

I lectured myself about being a hypocrite. I berated myself about my unwillingness to live up to my values when it wasn’t convenient — when I wasn’t in the right mood.

I wasn’t really mad at the woman. I wasn’t even especially annoyed with her company. They were just an excuse.

My problem is that I’m stuck among flawed human beings in a culture that seems bumper to bumper on a freeway to hell. I’m constantly frustrated that the world isn’t as I think it ought to be.

And it seems as though nobody is as hard to live with as I am — because I know every unloving thought and feeling I have.

I don’t know which comes first.

Maybe I get frustrated with other people because I’m already frustrated with myself. Or maybe the frustrations of dealing with a broken culture remind me that I’m just as broken as everybody else.

Either way, I end up in the same place.

There’s a voice in my head that tells me I ought to be better than this. I ought to be more patient. More understanding. More loving. I ought to live up to all the things I say I believe.

And there’s some truth in that.

I should have been kinder to the woman on the phone. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t deserve to deal with my irritation about something she couldn’t control.

But the voice in my head isn’t satisfied with telling me I made a mistake. It wants to put me on trial.

It wants to present all the evidence of the ways I fall short. It wants to remind me of my every selfish thought and every unloving feeling. It wants to convince me that if I really were the person I claim to want to be, I wouldn’t keep failing this way.

I know that voice very well.

It sounds a lot like the voice I learned as a child. Nothing was ever quite good enough for my angry and narcissistic father. There was always some way I could have done better. There was always some flaw to correct, some mistake to explain, some reason I ought to be ashamed that I hadn’t lived up to his expectations.

I learned that love and approval had to be earned.

I learned that being good wasn’t enough. I needed to be perfect.

I don’t consciously believe that anymore, but some part of me still seems to live as though it’s true.

And that creates a problem that still haunts me.

If I believe people have to earn love by being good enough, I’m going to have trouble loving anybody. There will always be something wrong with them. They will disappoint me. They will be selfish. They will make stupid choices. They will fail to live according to the values I think ought to guide them.

They will be human.

And so will I.

I can complain all I want about a culture that seems insane to me. I can be frustrated with people who behave selfishly. I can wish other people were kinder, wiser and more decent.

Sometimes I’ll even be right.

But none of that gives me the power to make anybody else change. And being angry that other people aren’t what I want them to be doesn’t make me any more loving.

It mostly makes me miserable.

The same thing happens when I turn that judgment toward myself.

I can demand that I be more patient. I can demand that I never be selfish. I can demand that I always live according to my values, no matter how tired or frustrated or angry I might be.

And I will fail.

Then I can hate myself for failing.

But that doesn’t make me better. It doesn’t make me more loving. It just keeps alive the old belief that love is something I will deserve someday — after I finally become good enough.

I’m never going to be good enough for that voice. Neither is anybody else.

Maybe this is why loving myself and loving other people have always been tangled together for me. I’ve been confused — on some level — because I’ve put humanity on trial every time I’ve put myself on trial.

But love can’t work that way.

If I wait for other people to become what I think they ought to be before I love them, I’ll spend my life angry with the world.

And if I wait until I become what I think I ought to be before I love myself, I’ll die waiting.

This doesn’t mean pretending that everything is fine. It doesn’t mean approving of things I believe are wrong. And it certainly doesn’t mean giving up on becoming a better man.

I still wish I had been kinder to that woman Monday evening.

But maybe becoming a better man doesn’t start with berating myself for being an imperfect one. Maybe it starts with accepting something I’ve spent most of my life fighting.

I’m one of those flawed human beings who frustrate me so much.

I’m often selfish. I’m impatient. I judge people. I fail to live according to values that I sincerely believe in. I know exactly how far the man I am can fall short of the man I want to be.

And I have to love that man anyway.

Because if love is something I offer only after perfection arrives, I’m never going to love anybody.

And that applies to me most of all.

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