David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

We project an image for others, but few see us as we really are

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How could someone know me for so many years and be so wrong about who I am?

That’s what I kept thinking Wednesday as a friend told me how he thinks others in our business perceive me. He wasn’t being critical in the least. We were just talking about the differences between different people we knew in real estate.

He told me that I come across as “extremely forceful” and “aggressive.” He said that a few words from me can be intense enough to be “intimidating” to others.

Then he said that I am extremely rational and unemotional in how I approach everything. He said he is very rational and isn’t as emotional as other people — but that I am even more calculating and logical than he is.

Forceful? Aggressive? Intimidating? It was hard for me to believe the words he was using, even though he was using them in an admiring way. I thought the face I present at work is toned down about 90 percent from what I’m actually thinking and feeling inside.

I had no idea that much of the intensity showed.

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Film hurts when I hear, ‘I’ve seen what we can be like together’

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I shouldn’t watch “The Family Man.” For me, it’s too powerful — and some of it hurts too much.

I haven’t seen this movie for about five years, but I came across a copy tonight. I wasn’t planning to watch it, but, somehow, I watched a few minutes. Then a few more. And then I couldn’t turn away. In some metaphorical way, I saw too much of myself in Jack.

Even more than that, though, I knew what he felt like — after he found himself transformed against his will — to know what his future could look like if he pursued love instead of selfishness.

And I know what it feels like to see Kate and to know she’s slipping away — to chase her and to beg her to have faith in a crazy dream. I know what he feels like when he delivers the sales pitch of his life standing in the middle of an airport: “I know we could both go on with our lives, and we’d both be fine. But I’ve seen what we can be like together.”

And that line crushes my heart each time I hear it, because I’m terrified Kate will get onto that plane anyway.

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You can’t see inside my heart, but my words invite you to know me

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Words are never enough, but they are all I have.

Everything I am, everything I feel, everything I dream — need, crave, see, experience — it’s all locked inside this consciousness which I know as myself. You can’t force my heart open to see inside, just as I can’t see into your heart or soul or whatever makes you a unique human being.

You can come inside my heart — and I can come inside your heart — but only when we invite each other. Only when we open the door from the inside. Only when we use words to say, “This is who I am. This is why I need you. Come touch my heart and experience my love for you.”

Words are powerful, but they are also weak. Words are a paradox. I can stand outside your heart for years and knock — speaking words of love and wisdom and caring — and have them roll right off you as though they were gibberish.

But when your heart is ready to hear — when it is ready to open — a word or two is enough to convey what thousands of words couldn’t properly express before.

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