David McElroy

I spent much of my life trying to correct the rest of the world.

I knew the facts. I knew what was rational. I was absolutely certain of myself. I was arrogant enough to believe I knew what other people ought to believe. How they ought to live. What they ought to say. And I would argue with almost anybody, especially online. All of these idiotic beliefs kept me miserable.

I had to learn a humbling lesson. Nobody wanted me to correct him or her. Even if I was right, my arrogant attitude and insistence on “fixing” others made me wrong. It took me years to learn that.

I see plenty of people around me today who still haven’t learned this lesson — and that is often keeping them unhappy, arrogant and bitter, even if they can’t admit it to themselves.

So I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned. You can accept this lesson or you can ignore it. That’s up to you. Ready?

Let people be wrong.

Don’t argue with them. Don’t try to prove you’re right. Don’t try to prove they’re wrong. You have nothing to gain by arguing. Even if the other person is objectively wrong, so what? Are you really making a difference now if you’re going around correcting people? How’s that working out for you?

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“They say if you scratch a cynic, you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
— Comedian George Carlin

I want to give up on this world. I want to give up on the human race. I go back and forth between rage and numbness about what I see from my fellow human beings.

I’m angry at the willful ignorance and delusion. I’m angry at the rampant dishonesty. I’m numb that people allow themselves to believe hateful idiocy — and I know there’s nothing I can do about it. So I swing wildly between two competing parts of my mind.

One part of me still clings to the belief that life can be beautiful. That love is real. That truth matters. That something sacred still flickers in this broken world. This part of me sees the way things ought to be and aches for those things. It dreams of deep, soul-level connection. Of a home where peace lives. Of a life anchored in what’s true and good and lasting.

But there’s another part of me that rolls its eyes and scoffs. That part has been hurt more times than I care to count. It remembers the idiocy, the lies and the self-deception of the masses who have given in to blindly following their passions and hatreds. That part of me sees a world that often mocks what’s pure and rewards what’s evil. And that part of my mind whispers to me, “You’re a fool if you keep believing!”

These two parts of me wrestle every day. The idealist still believes in love. The cynic keeps pointing to the scars and the new wounds.

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The Demopolis (Ala.) Times announced Wednesday that its latest edition is its last edition. Newspaper closures are so common today that it’s barely worth noticing — but the Times was the very last newspaper where I ever worked. So I noticed.

When I resigned as editor and publisher of The Demopolis Times — many years ago — I assumed I’d be back in another newsroom pretty quickly. Instead, I made an accidental career change and spent the next 20 years as a political consultant.

With the closure of The Demopolis Times, most of the newspapers where I worked are now gone. That’s no surprise, because the newspaper industry has been slowly dying for something like 30 years. But it’s sad to watch the demise of something I once loved and thought I’d spend my entire life doing.

I detested the time I spent running the Times, so I have no special love for the town or for the newspaper. But it feels a bit like watching the deaths of people I used to work with. And that’s gut-wrenching.

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