The Effects of the Black Bile

Recently, someone said I was melancholic.  I have not been able to stop thinking about that statement since then.  If I were to define myself, the word "melancholy" or other similar words would not even enter into my thoughts.  In fact, I've always thought of myself as just the opposite.  Although I did not receive the "class clown" award, I was forever playing pranks, cracking jokes, and cutting up with my classmates.  I have been referred to, in the past, as both child-like and, the less complimentary "childish".  I have been told I don't know when to be serious.  Immature is another word that has cropped up throughout my lifetime.  But never, ever, have I been described as anything like morose, saturnine or melancholic.

But, as times change so do people and so too their personalities.  I started to pay attention to my general attitude, and even went back and re-read the blogs of the past few months.  I have to say that this person may be on to something.  My own sense of self seems to be stuck in the past; I have been defining myself as the person I used to be, but am no more.  I have been trying to figure out what changed, and why.

In the end, the answer came to me easily, once I began reflecting upon the past.  Everyone had childhood dreams.  Everyone had goals and ideas of what he or or she was going to do in life.  And, in a sense, the fulfillment of those dreams and goals may be, to our limited minds, the definition of happiness.  I had many such dreams and goals, just like any other person.  I can say that most of them remain unfulfilled.  I never had a family, I never attained my dream job.  I didn't get the Ph.D, and didn't end up living in the exotic locale.  My financial status is so far removed from my goal as a younger person that it is enough to make me laugh--not the sort of laughter that is merry and brings one out of a state of melancholy however; but rather, the cynical chuckle that acknowledges that having money will never be my lot in life.

I have been thinking a lot about why and how some folks actually do achieve their dreams and achieve the goals that they set out before them, and why some of us fail so miserably.  I cannot speak for anyone but myself though, and it seems that the answer is a lack of commitment, or maybe more specifically, a loss of fidelity.  My goals were all good in the sense that they weren't going to hurt people in the process of attaining them.  But yet, they were empty.  There was no substance behind them to make me really strive to reach the finish line.  I wanted a good job because I wanted a good job, not because there was some passion in me that had to be exercised.  I wanted money because I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted, and not because of some desire, especially, to aid humanity with my philanthropy.  I wanted a family because it's what everyone wanted--I never reflected on any deeper meaning of what it means to be a wife and mother.  As for the advanced education--frankly, I just like being in school and studying and writing papers.

Why would anyone go out of their way, and suffer and sacrifice to achieve such empty, meaningless goals?  Someone who has such shallow aims has clearly not reflected on the deeper question of the meaning of life.  Many may argue that there is no answer to this question, but I, as a semi-faithful Catholic, know that there is an answer.

I say that failure to achieve may be the result of a loss of fidelity because I believe we were created for the purpose of loving God, both passively, as the receptor, but also actively, and in so doing, striving to reach the maximum potential that was instilled within us at creation.  If we compartmentalize, confining our expressions of faith and devotion to our Creator solely to one hour at church on Sunday, and do not acknowledge that this fidelity should be present at all times, expressed in all things we do, then we really have no choice but to fail in one way or another.  This type of failure is, then, clearly a result of a loss of fidelity.  And, unsurprisingly, this easily results in a life of aimless wandering, lethargy and, yes, melancholy.  The biggest failure then, is not in the lack of achieving the advanced degree or the money, or the job--clearly even the most faithful of persons sometimes suffer big failures.  It is in the inability, or perhaps, better put, the refusal, either willful or from pure laziness, to integrate faith in God into every aspect of life, so that each and every act, and each and every spoken word is a reflection of the love of God and acknowledgement of his love for us; which was borne out by the very act of creation.  There is no other way to truly know our self, and, therefore, our purpose, unless we know God.  And there is no way to know God except to spend time knowing Him.

I'm off to retreat in a few weeks.  I suspect I know what I'll be reflecting on.  It's too late for the family, the advanced degree and probably the money.  But  maybe it's not too late to discard the melancholy for something maybe just a little bit better.