David McElroy

Let me introduce you to someone important in my life.

Her name is Claire.

She is calm, intelligent, reflective, warm without being loud, serious without being severe. She has an easy smile and the sort of presence that suggests both kindness and backbone. She seems like someone who reads books thoughtfully, listens carefully and notices things most people rush past.

There’s just one complication.

Claire is not real.

She isn’t a woman I met, dated or nearly married. She’s not waiting somewhere for our paths to cross at a dinner party or a bookstore or one of those improbably meaningful moments movies have taught us to expect.

Claire is a hypothesis.

A few days ago, I engaged in an unusual exercise: describing, with surprising precision, the kind of woman who would most likely be deeply compatible with me. Not a fantasy assembled from wishful thinking, but a probabilistic sketch shaped by temperament, values and the realities of long-term partnership.

The result was Claire.

Keep Reading

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you’d do almost anything to achieve it? Have you ever been so close to such a thing that you could taste it?

When I was about 30 years old, I wanted to be a successful newspaper publisher for a large company. I wanted to be the “wunderkind” who people in the company whispered about — the one who everybody expects to be running the company soon.

A big newspaper chain hired me. I entered the company’s three-year publisher training program, but I was deemed ready to run a newspaper after just 10 months. I was promoted to be the editor and publisher of a small newspaper that published three times a week.

I was on top of the world. I was going to amaze everybody with what I could do. I was going to publish a high-quality newspaper for the people of the town and make money for the owners of my company. My employees were going to love me. We were going to do great things together. I was going to be on the fast track to running the company one day.

Just a year later, I quietly resigned and left town. I felt like a failure. Very little went right for me. I didn’t get along with the regional vice president who supervised my area. We fought over everything. My staff didn’t especially like me. I had to fire several people.

Mostly, though, I simply didn’t fit. I was an outsider who didn’t belong in this place. The people of the town didn’t like me — and I didn’t like them.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with this failure on my mind — and I suddenly realized that I never had a chance.

Keep Reading

Super Bowl Sunday has become something of a national holiday in the U.S. According to surveys, somewhere around 75 percent of Americans say they’ll watch at least part of the game.

Here’s the thing, though. The vast majority of those people don’t really care who wins the game, so why are they watching?

Some say it’s for the ads. Some have other excuses. For most, though, it’s simply because that’s what everyone else is doing. It’s become expected. Many people will turn the game on — for at least part of it — and many of those people will be watching at “Super Bowl parties.” Why? Because that’s what they’re expected to do.

I honestly don’t care whether you watch this game or not. I don’t care whether you want to see the ads or not. (The ads mostly seem terrible to me these days, but that’s another issue.) I’m concerned about something else.

I’m terrified that such a huge percentage of people are on social auto-pilot — simply doing something because their culture dictates that it has become “normal.”

Keep Reading