David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

Leave your dead past behind; that’s not where you’re going

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Late Sunday night, I had the old Beatles song “Yesterday” on my mind because it came up in discussion yesterday. As the lyrics floated through my mind, I found myself realizing — almost with surprise — that I can’t identify with the song’s longing for something better from the past.

I’m not exactly happy with where I am now. There are certainly periods in the past when I had it better — felt more love and had more money. All of that is true.

But I long for the future, not for yesterday.

I believe in tomorrow being what I’ve been looking for. I believe that the best days lie ahead of me. I believe there’s love waiting for me. I believe there is success beyond what I’ve dared to dream. And I think it’s a good thing that those better times are in the future, not in the past.

Yesterday is dead.

I’m focused today on the things I need to do to make tomorrow what I want it to be.

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I’m trying to silence inner critic who says I ought to be perfect

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For years, I wasn’t even conscious of the voice, but it was always there.

“You should have seen that!”

Every time I made an error — of any kind — the voice told me what I “should have” seen or done or not done. The voice knew everything I should have done. Its standard was perfection.

If I missed a question on a test in high school, the voice was outraged. If it was a complicated algebra problem and I overlooked a tiny key detail in the setup — causing me to get the answer wrong — the voice was angry. It wasn’t a chance to learn where pitfalls were. It was a reason to criticize myself, even if I outscored everyone else on the test, because I hadn’t been perfect.

When I played a game — whether it was racquetball or a word game — every mistake was a reason for outrage.

“Why didn’t you see that? What’s wrong with you?!”

When I used to play racquetball, I ruined several rackets in frustration with myself. I was never angry with an opponent. Always with myself. And without realizing it, I slowly taught myself that my very human mistakes meant I was irredeemably broken.

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I don’t really hate you, honest; I’m just afraid you may hurt me

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It happens more often than I like to admit. There’s an angry inner voice that seems to have a mind of its own.

“I hate everybody!” the voice hisses angrily in my head.

For years, I’ve joked that there’s a wide-ranging conspiracy to make me a misanthrope — and I fear it’s working. The joke has been my attempt to reconcile two things which can’t be reconciled:

— I choose to love others, for their benefit and my own.

— I hate so many of the people around me every day.

Those two things can’t be reconciled, so I make jokes about it. The more contact I have with humans, the more I feel like a misanthrope — and I hate feeling that way. It makes me feel so wrong inside, but something in me wants to lash out — needs to lash out — as though I’m defending myself.

And I think I finally understand why.

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