forgiveness

Why am I disappointed in others, when my secret sins lay hidden?

By David McElroy · May 24, 2019

Human beings constantly disappoint me.

I don’t mean to feel disappointed. In fact, I don’t expect that much out of most people, because I know human nature all too well. But I find myself having higher expectations for some people. And it hurts me when I’m disappointed.

I found out at dinner tonight that a friend has been cheating on his wife. I didn’t even know that my dinner companion knew this guy, but his name came up and she filled me in on some disturbing developments in his life. There were apparently multiple women involved before the cheating was discovered. His wife and children now know about it. A divorce is pending.

This is someone I thought I knew. I thought I knew his values. I thought I understood his priorities. But it appears I was wrong.

The news upset me enough that the rest of our dinner was a blur. Part of me wanted to feel outrage, but I realized it was mostly the hurt of disappointment. I was disappointed that someone I’ve respected didn’t live up to my expectations.

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Apologize while you still can, because you’ll live with regret

By David McElroy · April 12, 2018

She was hurt and scared that night as we talked about our relationship. We had planned to get married, but our relationship was spinning out of control. I was losing interest and she didn’t understand why she was losing me. At that point, I didn’t even understand why I was pulling away.

As we sat in my car that night, she was crying and telling me how unhappy she was with how things were between us. I knew I needed to end the relationship, but I was afraid to let her go.

In her intense frustration and despair, she said something that offended me. Wait. Let me back up. It wasn’t what she said, but the specific way in which she said it that upset me. The specifics don’t matter. In the middle of her pouring out her heart about hurt and unhappiness, I chose to get upset about her choice of words.

I angrily stormed out of the car and slammed the door, walking off and leaving her there.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

forgiveness

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