David McElroy

Elon Musk can be an eccentric jerk. He can also be a visionary who leads companies to great achievements. He does things that people say can’t be done. But he’s not always honest or reasonable about it, as I see it.

Musk has been a wildly successful creator. He’s gotten stunningly wealthy by betting on himself. I like and admire some of the things he’s done. I detest many of his actions at other times. I don’t see how anybody can admire him completely or reject him completely.

But Musk is a polarizing figure. Some people seem to worship him. Others seem to hate everything about him. And now that he’s buying Twitter, a lot of people are projecting their deep biases about the man onto their opinions about the purchase.

But the most bizarre thing about public commentary about Musk — and other wealthy people at times — is that so many otherwise-reasonable people have strong feelings about what he should do with his money.

Every time I see someone criticize Musk — for his space ventures or for his latest plan to buy Twitter, for example — I always ask one simple question.

Why do you care what Elon Musk does with his own money?

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When we rescue animals, it’s just as likely that they’re going to rescue us. That’s been true for me over the years. I’ve had as many as five dogs and as many as 13 cats, but I’m down to just one dog, Lucy, and two cats, Merlin and Thomas. (Here’s their Instagram account.)

I found an amazing example of the power of animal influence earlier today. On Reddit, someone posted a letter he received from a neighbor. This person had asked the neighbor — an older man who lives alone — to babysit the family’s two dogs and a cat while the rest of the household was on vacation.

The person who received the letter described the animals as a German shepherd and a cat (named Oreo), along with “the crankiest little beagle you’ve ever seen in your life.” But this little collection of animals somehow changed the old man’s life.

I found the man’s story moving. The letter is long, but I’m going to quote the entire thing:

“This letter is regarding your vacation two weeks ago, and how you let me babysit Smokey, Oreo, and Jennifer. I’d just like to give you a letter of thanks.

“As you know, I’m an old man. You don’t see me outside often anymore, as these joints aren’t as lively as they used to be. To add to that, two years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, my dad got diagnosed with stage four colon cancer After his death, I was left alone in my home. I don’t have a wife or kids. I could go to sleep one day and never wake up again. Every day is spent just sitting around and wondering what I have done for this world.

“Until I met Smokey. Oreo, and Jennifer.

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For most of my life, I was the real problem in each of my romantic relationships. Every failure was ultimately mine.

I didn’t know that at the time, of course. If you had suggested it to me back then, I would have been aggressively defensive. I would have gotten angry. I could have explained clearly and reasonably why I was always blameless.

It wasn’t until I had gone through a lot of therapy — in bits and pieces, over a decade or so — that I finally came face to face with the demons that had stalked my life and shaped my actions.

I hadn’t been a bad person. I hadn’t been abusive in relationships. But the emotional demons within caused me to sabotage my relationships with poor decisions. And those demons gave me every excuse in the world to blame others.

I still live with those demons today. They still influence my thinking. They tell me I’ll never be good enough. They tell me that nobody will ever really love me. They tell me that I’m worthless unless I’m perfect. I now know these are lies, even though I have to keep learning that over and over.

What I’ve come to understand lately is that I need a woman who’s confronted her demons, too. That doesn’t mean I want a “perfect” partner. In fact, I’m not attracted to women who aren’t damaged in their own ways.

But I need a partner who’s already confronted her demons. I need a woman who’s already started to deal with those demons, not living in complete denial — as I did for so many years.

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