David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

Folks all around are waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there’

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She was slowly wandering through the pharmacy section at Walmart. Her expression was blank. Not sad, not angry, not anything. Just tired.

It’s hard to say how old she was. Maybe 65, maybe 70? Who knows? It was about 50 degrees outside, but she was bundled as though it was below freezing. She seemed lost in her own little world.

Was she sick? Was she lonely? I couldn’t tell as we scanned the same shelves.

“They sure make it confusing to find what you’re looking for in here, don’t they?” I said, not sure whether she wanted to be friendly. She didn’t respond for a long moment.

“Yes, they do,” she said. She paused. “I don’t even remember what I’m here for now. I just don’t want to go home yet.”

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Our inexplicable behavior ‘signals’ to the world who and what we are

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If you meet me in a business context, you’re probably going to see a white cotton shirt and a red tie very much like this.

I think I still have one blue dress shirt somewhere, but the vast majority of the shirts I own are white. (I order mine from Nordstrom. When I can afford it one day, I’ll go back to having them custom-tailored.) I have about 15 ties and they are all some form of red. In a normal setting, I’ll be wearing black pants made of a natural material, probably wool, and very traditional Allen Edmonds dress shoes.

Why? Did I spontaneously decide as a child that I have a thing for white shirts? Do I have a fetish for red pieces of silk tied around my neck in a symmetrical knot? Why would I do this?

The people who meet me might not consciously notice — and they might not even like to dress this way themselves — but they unconsciously know what it means. It means, “I’m a professional and you can trust me.”

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Marriage is a business decision, not just matter of romantic love

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The husband or wife you choose is the most important business partner you will ever have — and the family you create together is the most important business organization of your life.

We have been taught by our culture to see marriage as little more than two people magically brought together by fate and chance. Our movies teach us this. Our fairy tales teach us this, too. But those stories almost always end when the two people ultimately come together. We’re told they “lived happily ever after,” but we never see what that looks like.

Romantic love is very important to me. I’ve written multiple times about the ways in which the heart knows what it wants — often for reasons which aren’t clear to the rational mind. But if you choose to follow romantic love alone — and follow the model of family which culture is teaching us today — you will be throwing away your most valuable material asset.

And if you choose that path, you’re setting yourself up for a miserable family.

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