David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

change

Becoming who we’re meant to be is the hardest battle of our lives

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When I look at who I was in the past, I barely recognize myself.

It doesn’t matter how far back I go. The only constant has been change. There are times when I feel happy about that, because I think I’m a better person than I was as a college student (such as in this photo) or a young newspaper editor or as a publisher or as a political consultant.

When I look back at myself in the days when I filled those various roles, I know I’ve grown tremendously. I’ve learned more about myself. I’ve learned to love other people better. I’ve gained enough wisdom to see through things which I blindly believed because my culture had told me to believe them.

I feel good about coming as far as I’ve come. And yet there are times — such as right now — when I wonder if I’ll ever become the person I’m supposed to be.

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Does change really come quickly? Or do we finally accept the truth?

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When change happens, it can seem like a bolt out of the blue.

It can seem as though we’re heading in one stable direction in life and then something changes without warning — suddenly upending all of our plans and assumptions and hopes.

But is that the way it works? Is the dramatic moment of change what we think it is — a shocking thing we didn’t see coming — or is it just the moment when we finally accept what should have been obvious long before?

I met a young woman earlier this week who really impressed me. When I was eating at a restaurant where I rarely go Monday evening, I kept noticing an attractive server and thinking she looked familiar. I finally invited her over and asked if we might have met.

As far as we could figure, we had never met, but we talked for 10 or 15 minutes. She was delightful. She was intelligent, charming, funny and beautiful. She was tall and had dark brown hair that made her bright blue eyes all the more striking.

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Bad personal decisions are at root
of almost all of society’s problems

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I’m going to tell you a disturbing secret: Human beings are very flawed and make terrible life decisions which hurt themselves and others. No form of legislation is ever going to change that.

I am where I am in life because of a series of decisions — some good and some bad. I had a lot of advantages that some people don’t have. I came from a relatively affluent family with educated parents who taught me how to fit in among the American middle class. I had some disadvantages that some didn’t have. I came from a dysfunctional family which had serious and ongoing problems.

Everybody comes from some combination of advantages and disadvantages. Some get luckier than others. In fact, some people come from such dire circumstances that we’ve learned not to expect anything of them. We’ve given up on them — and we’ve essentially told them they ought to give up on themselves.

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