{"id":34303,"date":"2021-06-11T00:29:32","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T05:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34303"},"modified":"2021-06-11T00:36:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T05:36:47","slug":"what-if-repairing-my-worst-flaw-meant-losing-my-greatest-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34303","title":{"rendered":"What if repairing my worst flaw meant losing my greatest power?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I miss being arrogant and overconfident.<\/p>\n

That sounds odd. I understand that. But it\u2019s hard for others to understand the \u201csuperpower\u201d that I lost when I started fixing my worst flaw. It\u2019s impossible for me to explain to you the difference between what I feel like today and what I felt like when that photo was taken.<\/p>\n

Imagine feeling total confidence in yourself. Imagine being convinced you were pretty much always right. Imagine knowing you could do anything you wanted to do.<\/p>\n

It was a rush of confidence. A feeling of power. A quiet belief in my superiority. And a faith that I would always win. That\u2019s the way I felt back then. It added up to feelings of security and self-worth and certainty.<\/p>\n

But then I confronted my dark side. I faced my worst flaws. I confessed what I had done to hurt others. And I changed myself. Not overnight. But I changed.<\/p>\n

My belief in myself had led me to a lot of success when I was young. (Those successes were never enough, of course. I thought I deserved more.) I could walk into any situation — any room, with any people, in any situation — and believe I could find a way to win.<\/p>\n

And for the most part, I did win.<\/p>\n

I did things that a young guy wasn’t supposed to do. I made a lot of money. I won elections for some politicians. \u00a0I impressed some people. I made others jealous. And I stepped on a lot of people to get the things I wanted. I didn’t care.<\/p>\n

I’ve told you about the time I spent in counseling with a good psychologist — about 12 years ago — that completely changed me, so I’m not going to belabor all the things that sent me to her office.<\/p>\n

In less than a year, I came to understand my father’s narcissism, then I suddenly understood much of my childhood, and then I had to confront how much of my father’s dysfunction had crept into my own life.<\/p>\n

I had to face all of the attitudes and behaviors in me that were reflections of the training I had received from him. I had to accept the pain I had brought to people in my personal life because of my arrogance. And I had to deconstruct the dysfunctional false self that had become such a part of me from decades of walking through the world as a “superior creature.”<\/p>\n

I plunged into fixing myself as I worked with this psychologist. I don’t know if I’ll ever repair every nook and cranny of my subconscious, but I know that I humbled myself and brought myself down. Way down.<\/p>\n

Since I had lived with those dark characteristics all my life, I had no idea they were so tightly connected with my confidence about myself, much less with the success I’d experienced. If I had understood what fixing my flaws would do to me, I don’t know whether I would have had the courage to move forward.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I finally understand. My arrogance and overconfidence gave me the courage and drive to do whatever came my way. They were a huge part of what had made me successful.<\/p>\n

When I stripped myself of those dark characteristics, I changed. I saw the world in shades of gray. I wasn’t so eager to push past other people to get what I wanted. I cared whether I hurt people. I saw more of my flaws. I cared more about love and connection than I cared about success. And I understood that I was very capable of failure.<\/p>\n

I’m a more loving person today. I’m more empathetic. I’m better at the intimacy that’s so important to love and connection.<\/p>\n

But I question myself. I know I’m not always right. And I have a fear of failure which I never experienced when I was young.<\/p>\n

I constantly tell people that everything in life is a tradeoff — and I strongly believe that. If you get more of one thing, you’re going to get less of something else. For every flaw a person has, there’s a corresponding positive. And for every shiny and beautiful thing a person has to offer to you, there are dark negatives lurking hidden within as compensation.<\/p>\n

(Read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay called \u201cCompensation<\/a>\u201d and then think about it for a long time very carefully.)<\/p>\n

I don’t want to go back to being the person I once was. I don’t want to be arrogant to those I love. I don’t want to be dismissive of everyone around me. I like the growth I’ve experienced — and I like knowing that I can now love in a way that I couldn’t have loved 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

All of that is true. It really is. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes recall how glorious I could feel on the inside back then. And it doesn’t mean there aren’t times when I miss the fruits of my old sins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I miss being arrogant and overconfident. That sounds odd. I understand that. But it\u2019s hard for others to understand the \u201csuperpower\u201d that I lost when I started fixing my worst flaw. It\u2019s impossible for me to explain to you the difference between what I feel like today and what I felt like when that photo Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-8Vh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34303"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34316,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34303\/revisions\/34316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}