David McElroy

I have a confession to make.

I used to get into terrible arguments with people online. It could be about all sorts of things, although I guess most of them centered around politics. It took me a long time, but I was finally able to quit doing this. I walk away from argument now. What changed?

First, I admitted to myself that my real motivation for continuing to argue was fear that the other person — or those following the argument — would assume I wasn’t smart enough to respond. I finally realized that it was just my ego getting in the way of walking away.

Second, I finally accepted that it doesn’t matter to me what other people think of me, especially random strangers online. I finally became mature enough — many years after this should have been so — for me not to be intimidated by the fear that someone might think I wasn’t smart enough.

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When I was in college, I knew someone who was going through a difficult academic semester. Finals were just starting, but she told me she had a terrible feeling something was wrong at home.

She called home — hundreds of miles away — to check on everything. Her mother assured her that everything was fine and told her to just concentrate on her finals. She went back to studying, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that something terrible had happened.

She finally got through with finals and called home. She found that her family had decided to hide something from her. A grandmother who she had been very close to had died — right about the time she first started experiencing the apprehensive feeling that wouldn’t leave her alone. The family had decided not to tell her until finals were over — so as not to academically sidetrack the first person in her family to go to college.

The woman was convinced that she somehow knew something was wrong, even if she never could put her finger on it. I’ve experienced this oddness in my own life. For the second time in the last week, I’ve experienced one of those inexplicable feelings today — and I have no idea what I’m sensing.

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