The draw of a purpose

I’ve written about purpose before, but wanted to revisit it. I was talking to a friend recently who deconstructed/deconverted from Christianity around the same time that I did. We talked about our kids, marriages, life in general. We talked about things we used to believe, currently believe, and not sure what we believe. One thing he brought up that I thought was interesting is that he said he misses believing that God has some specific purpose for his life. I totally get that. The idea that God has a plan, a purpose for my life is one of the main things that drew me to the charismatic/word of faith flavor of Christianity. I had been a Christian since I was 12, but when I started hearing about God having a purpose for me, I wanted to know more. At that point, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was around 23 years old when I met folks from this kind of church. I was told that God has a plan for my life, all I have to do is ask Him and He will show me. Great! That sounded like a heck of a deal. So, I started asking. And attending church. And asking. Went to Bible school. Kept asking. I would think that I was supposed to do such and such. Kept asking. More thoughts about doing such and such. And kept asking. After a long time, I started to realize that the “answers” I may have been getting were really just my own thoughts. And not long after, I realized that I no longer believed.

Part of me was excited to see what this new life of freedom had for me. Another part, like my friend, missed the idea that there was a God who had a specific plan for my life. It took a while, but now I like the idea that I’m free to do whatever I want with my life without messing up some plan that this invisible, silent God had mapped out for me. I no longer believe that life has some inherent purpose for everyone. Below is an excerpt from Osho talking about how life has no purpose.
“It is very difficult, particularly for the Western mind, to understand that life is purposeless. And it is beautiful that it is purposeless. If it is purposeful then the whole thing becomes absurd – then who will decide the purpose? Then some God has to be conceived who decides the purpose, and then human beings become just puppets; then no freedom is possible. And if there is some purpose then life becomes businesslike, it cannot be ecstatic.

The West has been thinking in terms of purpose, but the East has been thinking in terms of purposelessness. The East says life is not a business, it is a play. And a play has no purpose really, it is non-purposeful. Or you can say play is its own purpose, to play is enough. Life is not reaching towards some goal, life itself is the goal. It is not evolving towards some ultimate; this very moment, here and now, life is ultimate.”

I tend to believe this. I do, however, believe that you can find purpose in what you are already doing. Or you can find purpose and meaning in something you might discover down the road. I don’t always like my job, but the purpose of going to work is to make money for myself and my family. Also, to have something productive to do with my time every day. I practice tai chi because I enjoy it and want to get better at it. I think you can have moments of purpose as well. When my daughter was in college, she spent every spring break with a group from the university that went to poor areas in various cities and painted houses, mowed lawns, worked with the homeless, etc. These week long trips gave her a sense of purpose and meaning. My point is, even though I don’t believe life has any purpose other than itself, or that there is some God that gives people their purpose, I still think life can have purpose and meaning. But it’s given by the individual to themselves. Your purpose or goal might be just making it through another day. Alan Watts says to look at life as play, or as a drama. Life can be very, very hard. During those times it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to look at life as play. Maybe a drama, but not play. And that’s ok. I went through several years of extreme depression where my goal was to just make it through the day. And it totally sucked! Part of the depression was because I could not for the life of me figure out what plan or purpose God had for me. It nearly drove me insane. Years later, I hardly think about why I’m here or what purpose or meaning my life has. It’s taken a lot of time to shed that old way of thinking. Studying Buddhist and Taoist philosophy has helped. Lots of meditation and mindfulness practice has been good, too. And I try to not lose the wonder of the world we live in. I’ll look at my phone, or smart tv, or electric cars or any other technology that wasn’t around just a few years ago and just be like, wow! That’s amazing! Or even just noticing everyday things and realizing that I can comprehend what I’m seeing and have thoughts about it.

From Albert Camus – “Embrace the absurd. Humans want meaning and purpose, but the universe is indifferent to our existence and offers us no inherent meaning or purpose. The only way to confront this contradiction is to embrace the absurd, accept the inherent meaninglessness of the universe. To find meaning and purpose in the act of living itself. Actively engaging with the world and finding joy and fulfillment in the present moment.

You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. Suicide, faith, or acceptance. Since your life has no inherent meaning but the meaning you give to it, you can change this meaning at any point.
Embrace the present moment. Experience the beauty and wonder of the world around you. Look for beauty and wonder in your daily life.”

This mindset makes sense to me now. Being able to be in awe of the fact that I exist. I Googled, what are the odds of me existing? The answer I got is one in ten to the 2,685,000th power. So, basically zero. Wow. Now there have been days in my past, and probably will be days in my future, where I wonder if I want to be existing at all? Life can be hard. It can be very hard. But it can also be wonderful. Most of the time, it’s somewhere in between. Learning to be ok living in that in between is challenging, but I think it’s worth it. Like I said, I understand the draw of a purpose, especially a divine purpose. I still occasionally pray, if there is a god, and that god has a purpose for my life, please show me. So far, it’s been pretty quiet on that front. If I ever do get a definitive answer, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Perspective, yet again, again

I’m probably going to catch all kinds of hell for this post, but here we go. I was born in 1968. I grew up in Tulsa, OK. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Oklahoma, but especially in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, it wasn’t the most diverse, forward thinking, open to new views and ideas state in America. It still isn’t, by far. I haven’t lived there for a long time, but I now live in north Mississippi. LOL! So yeah, I’ve not exactly been in areas on the cutting edge of progressive social issues and change. That being said, I am doing my best to keep up with the more recent social issues of the day. Multiple genders, gender fluidity, pronoun preferences, etc. As far as I know, I do not work with anyone who has a pronoun preference different from their day to day outward appearance as far as historical gender roles go. Did I say that right? I hope so. It’s getting difficult to say things in a way that won’t offend people, even when that is not the intent. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to my children about these things, educating myself to the best of my ability. I want to be understanding and compassionate and supportive of people.

The event that has me writing this happened a couple days ago. My 23 year old son works for a company that is very forward thinking, and he is as well. He is a very hard worker and has always done well at any job he has ever had. He was written up at work, not for poor work habits, or bad customer service, or being late, or anything like that. He was written up because he did not refer to a co-worker by their preferred pronoun and they complained about it to management. He forgot this person’s preferred pronoun because 99% of the people he has ever known in his life go by the pronoun that he used with this person. So instead of his company standing up for a stellar employee and explaining to this person that everyone is doing their best to accommodate them in their preferred pronoun, and explaining that this is not yet a common social norm, my son gets written up.

So, what does this have to do with perspective? Well, I wonder if any of the thousands of people in the Gaza strip or in Israel, who are in fear for their lives, are being offended if someone says, sir, look out for that bomb!, instead of, they, look out for that bomb? I wonder if any young people who are starving in South Sudan are offended because someone referred to them as she when they prefer he, or vice versa? I work with man (meaning, of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring) that grew up in Haiti. He was fortunate to have a very small home and both of his parents were able to find work. His family would have fallen well below the poverty line in the US, but there, he thought they were rich. Based on the things he has told me about growing up there, I’m pretty sure no one got offended by not being referred to by a non-traditional pronoun. Many are just glad to have any kind of shelter and food.
I’m all for supporting any person that I can. If Tony, a man according to the above definition, who I’ve worked with for 14 years and has always gone by Tony, comes in tomorrow in a dress and says, from now on I’m Tiffany, I’m all for it. Tiffany it is. But if I slip up and accidently call them Tony, like I have for 14 years, I certainly don’t think my job should be in jeopardy! Now, if I call anyone at work asshole, or bitch, or any other derogatory term, then yes, there should be some kind of disciplinary action taken. Again, perspective. When my son realized he had not used the person’s preferred pronoun, he apologized and corrected himself. This person was still offended enough to bring it to management’s attention and demanded action. I guess in today’s world with social media and lawsuits and all that, the company figured they would catch less flack taking action against my son then they would if they had stood up for him. And I get that. I think its total bullshit, but I get it. Am I offended by the person’s offence? I suppose I am. Am I pissed and venting? Yes. Would I have written this if it had not been my son but one of his co-workers? Probably.

My sincere apologies to anyone that I may have offended by this post.
When I do get pissed like this, I think of the meme below. 🙂