David McElroy

People all around me seem angry and agitated lately in ways that they don’t even seem to fully understand. I’ve realized lately that I’ve felt something very much like what existential philosophers called existential angst or dread.

It seems as though we have more choices than ever, but we have less confidence than ever before in our ability to make the right choices. I suggest that we’re feeling these ways because we’re focused on the wrong things in life.

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There are few things scarier than letting your guard down enough to accept love from another person — especially if you secretly fear you don’t deserve to be loved.

We all want to be loved. Most of us say we want a healthy and happy relationship. So we plant seeds and eagerly watch for love to grow. When the buds of love start growing, our warm hearts believe we’ve found what we’ve been looking for. We feel joy and happiness.

So why do so many of us find ways to block love at that point? Why do we feel panic when it’s time to accept what’s being offered? Why do we find excuses to slam the door in the face of the one who says, “I really love you and I accept you as you are?”

I see this pattern in other people pretty easily. It’s easy for me to smugly point my finger at another’s mistakes — but it’s humbling and horrifying when I realize I’ve made the same arrogant mistake.

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I used to be arrogant enough to believe that my death one day would be front page news all over the world.

I imagined all the great things I would have done by the time I died — the political power I had won, the businesses I had built and the influence I had had — and I thought that many millions would mourn me. I even thought I’d make the history books.

I have a very different view today of my obituary. I haven’t yet had the great success of my fantasies — not yet — but a summary of my life would sound interesting and successful. I had a wonderful run in newspapers, starting from reporter and quickly rising to publisher. I got into politics by accident and had a couple of decades of financial success getting candidates elected to powerful positions. I’ve owned small companies. I’ve made money and lost it. The story would be colorful.

But the one thing I now realize is most important to this earthly life would be missing. If I died today — which I certainly don’t expect anytime soon — a brutally honest obituary might say, “A lot of people liked him. A number of people will miss him. But he died without anybody who loved him. He died alone, with no family.”

And that feels like failure.

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