By Elizabeth Chung
Each day, you all make choices, some more significant than others. However, each of these choices accumulate to make up the quality of your daily life. For individuals who have noticed a decreased sense of purpose and meaning in their lives, the “Les Misérables” Bishop Myriel can be used as an ideal for how you make these choices, so perhaps, you can make the world a bit better and yourselves a bit happier. While Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” was written over a 100 years ago, the “upright man” of Bishop Myriel is still a model that is relevant today.
The bishop in “Les Misérables” is a near perfect ideal of an entirely unselfish man, sometimes at the expense of his own well being. As his role of the Bishop of Digne, he constantly gives to his constituents, doing far beyond what is asked of him. The selflessness Bishop Myriel exhibits is admirable to the greatest degree.
He only allows himself to live the simplest life, so he can help others as much as he is able. In his mind, whatever he had, he wanted to give to others, and he felt that whatever he gave was never good enough. To the bishop, “no matter how much money came to him, he never had enough. And then he robbed himself,” so he can continue to give to the poor. Through Bishop Myriel’s kindness, he “had filled the city of Digne with a kind of tender and filial veneration.” Bishop Myriel seems to be the epitome of a good person, but it is important to remember that following each of his actions precisely is not a fix-all.
Myriel’s high degree of generosity is deeply admirable; however, this degree of generosity is unattainable for every single individual to carry out. Still, the bishop’s actions are an inspiration for how giving to others is a masterful way of spreading goodness. His actions and habits work as components of a good life. Maybe not a perfect life, but a life that works to help others.
Bishop Myriel continues to strike the readers of “Les Misérables” as a selfless individual when he gives up the luxurious house that he is given as part of his role as Bishop of Digne. Bishop Myriel trades gives up his large and extravagant house to be turned into a hospital and in turn, takes the much smaller hospital as his residence instead. In this act, Bishop Myriel gives up a worldly possession that does not mean as much to him as it does to a hospital patient.
Giving up material possessions to those that have a greater use for them can add more meaning to your own life. In fact, altruism has been scientifically proven to make you happier, so not only are you helping others by giving, but you are also helping yourself.
Bishop Myriel also serves as a model for living a mindful life. He “devoted an hour to meditation” as part of his daily routine. The benefits of meditating include boosting positive emotion in individuals. By following Bishop Myriel’s lead and devoting a certain amount of time each day (does not need to be a full hour) to meditation, you will become more aware of your surroundings and be able to better connect with others around you. Additionally, mindfulness is an effective stress-reducing technique that helps improve quality of life.
Each person is a culmination of choices that they make each and every day, and by using Bishop Myriel as an ideal, you can work towards making as many choices as you can that align with his example. The ‘solution’ is not a one-and-done, but a chance each day we have to make choices that are moral and good so we may be our best selves to not only help those around us, but also to be someone we are all proud to be.
Go out into the world, go through your day, and remember Bishop Myriel.