Should I Have A Spiritual Director?

Not since the days of my youth, when I was rather seriously afflicted with a case of scruples for a good many years, a malady not uncommon to Roman Catholic youth, have I had anything resembling spiritual direction. Perhaps, the youth of other denominations suffered from scruples, too, but mine was a predominantly Roman Catholic world, so I can't speak with any authority of other denominations. The "sins" about which I worried that I was losing my soul were trivia. I'd give you examples, but they're far too embarrassing.

Certain of my "sins" had to do with "impure thoughts", which the nuns regularly warned us against, however they never spelled out examples of "impure thoughts", I assume because to explain them would be embarrassing, plus the nuns and the students would have to think the "impure thoughts", and, lest we all fall into sin by lingering on the thoughts, we'd be bound to immediately wrest our minds away from them. All was therefore left vague, which meant that those of us of a scrupulous inclination were left with a large and fertile orchard from which to pluck the forbidden fruit of "impure thoughts" which we were absolutely forbidden to think. There's nothing like repression to lead to obsession!

My cure from scruples came when I was in college, when the Jesuit philosophy professor who was counseling me told me that if I had any doubt whatsoever as to whether something was a sin, I should consider it not a sin. I believed him and followed his advice, and, before long, I was cured. Back then, I thought that if a priest told me to do something, it was always the right thing to do, which makes me thankful that I was never around sexually abusive priests, but in the case of the scruples, the advice worked.

The priest who helped me before the philosophy professor was a professor of theology, a kind and caring man, but he became ill and went into a mental institution. I sometimes wondered if listening to my petty worries about trivia (which were not trivial or petty to me) and those of other students like me (he attracted the woebegone like flypaper attracts flies) finally sent him over the edge. That was another addition to my pile of scruples. Was it partially my fault that he became ill?

I don't even know if the sessions with the priests over my scruples count as spiritual direction or would rather be considered spiritual counseling, because I haven't regularly had anything that I could call spiritual direction since then. I suppose that having passed the three-quarter century mark of years on this earth that it's a little late to be wondering if I need a spiritual director. I suspect that I may be too headstrong and rebellious to take spiritual direction, and the thought of putting my spiritual life in the hands of another human being is quite scary to me.

So what do you think? Should most Christians have a spiritual director?