{"id":40789,"date":"2026-10-05T20:24:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T01:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=40789"},"modified":"2026-10-05T20:24:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T01:24:02","slug":"i-struggle-to-love-a-flawed-world-because-i-struggle-to-love-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=40789","title":{"rendered":"I struggle to love a flawed world because I struggle to love myself"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

It\u2019s hard for me to love other people. It\u2019s even harder for me to love myself.<\/p>\n

I was driving home from work Monday evening and I had just angrily hung up the phone. A woman had called me from a company that did some work at my house a few years ago. I didn\u2019t like the way the company was handling its business with me, but it was nothing personal with the woman.<\/p>\n

The thing that annoyed me wasn\u2019t her fault. She was just reading a script. She was doing her job. But I was in a bad mood \u2014 and I took out my frustrations on her.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t nasty or rude, but I certainly wasn\u2019t kind or loving.<\/p>\n

As I drove the rest of the way down I-459 toward home, I stewed in my irritation, but my annoyance quickly turned toward myself. I wasn\u2019t upset with that woman or her company.<\/p>\n

I lectured myself about being a hypocrite. I berated myself about my unwillingness to live up to my values when it wasn\u2019t convenient \u2014 when I wasn\u2019t in the right mood.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t really mad at the woman. I wasn’t even especially annoyed with her company. They were just an excuse.<\/p>\n

My problem is that I’m stuck among flawed human beings in a culture that seems bumper to bumper on a freeway to hell. I’m constantly frustrated that the world isn’t as I think it ought to be.<\/p>\n

And it seems as though nobody is as hard to live with as I am \u2014 because I know every unloving thought and feeling I have.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know which comes first.<\/p>\n

Maybe I get frustrated with other people because I\u2019m already frustrated with myself. Or maybe the frustrations of dealing with a broken culture remind me that I\u2019m just as broken as everybody else.<\/p>\n

Either way, I end up in the same place.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a voice in my head that tells me I ought to be better than this. I ought to be more patient. More understanding. More loving. I ought to live up to all the things I say I believe.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s some truth in that.<\/p>\n

I should have been kinder to the woman on the phone. She hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. She didn\u2019t deserve to deal with my irritation about something she couldn\u2019t control.<\/p>\n

But the voice in my head isn\u2019t satisfied with telling me I made a mistake. It wants to put me on trial.<\/p>\n

It wants to present all the evidence of the ways I fall short. It wants to remind me of my every selfish thought and every unloving feeling. It wants to convince me that if I really were the person I claim to want to be, I wouldn\u2019t keep failing this way.<\/p>\n

I know that voice very well.<\/p>\n

It sounds a lot like the voice I learned as a child. Nothing was ever quite good enough for my angry and narcissistic father. There was always some way I could have done better. There was always some flaw to correct, some mistake to explain, some reason I ought to be ashamed that I hadn\u2019t lived up to his expectations.<\/p>\n

I learned that love and approval had to be earned.<\/p>\n

I learned that being good wasn\u2019t enough. I needed to be perfect.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t consciously believe that anymore, but some part of me still seems to live as though it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

And that creates a problem that still haunts me.<\/p>\n

If I believe people have to earn love by being good enough, I\u2019m going to have trouble loving anybody. There will always be something wrong with them. They will disappoint me. They will be selfish. They will make stupid choices. They will fail to live according to the values I think ought to guide them.<\/p>\n

They will be human.<\/p>\n

And so will I.<\/p>\n

I can complain all I want about a culture that seems insane to me. I can be frustrated with people who behave selfishly. I can wish other people were kinder, wiser and more decent.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I\u2019ll even be right.<\/p>\n

But none of that gives me the power to make anybody else change. And being angry that other people aren\u2019t what I want them to be doesn\u2019t make me any more loving.<\/p>\n

It mostly makes me miserable.<\/p>\n

The same thing happens when I turn that judgment toward myself.<\/p>\n

I can demand that I be more patient. I can demand that I never be selfish. I can demand that I always live according to my values, no matter how tired or frustrated or angry I might be.<\/p>\n

And I will fail.<\/p>\n

Then I can hate myself for failing.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t make me better. It doesn\u2019t make me more loving. It just keeps alive the old belief that love is something I will deserve someday \u2014 after I finally become good enough.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m never going to be good enough for that voice. Neither is anybody else.<\/p>\n

Maybe this is why loving myself and loving other people have always been tangled together for me. I’ve been confused \u2014 on some level \u2014 because I’ve put humanity on trial every time I’ve put myself on trial.<\/p>\n

But love can\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n

If I wait for other people to become what I think they ought to be before I love them, I\u2019ll spend my life angry with the world.<\/p>\n

And if I wait until I become what I think I ought to be before I love myself, I\u2019ll die waiting.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean pretending that everything is fine. It doesn\u2019t mean approving of things I believe are wrong. And it certainly doesn\u2019t mean giving up on becoming a better man.<\/p>\n

I still wish I had been kinder to that woman Monday evening.<\/p>\n

But maybe becoming a better man doesn\u2019t start with berating myself for being an imperfect one. Maybe it starts with accepting something I\u2019ve spent most of my life fighting.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m one of those flawed human beings who frustrate me so much.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m often selfish. I\u2019m impatient. I judge people. I fail to live according to values that I sincerely believe in. I know exactly how far the man I am can fall short of the man I want to be.<\/p>\n

And I have to love that man anyway.<\/p>\n

Because if love is something I offer only after perfection arrives, I\u2019m never going to love anybody.<\/p>\n

And that applies to me most of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard for me to love other people. It\u2019s even harder for me to love myself. I was driving home from work Monday evening and I had just angrily hung up the phone. A woman had called me from a company that did some work at my house a few years ago. I didn\u2019t like 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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-aBT","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40789","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=40789"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40795,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40789\/revisions\/40795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}