Free from Divine Purpose

By Black Freethought ~

Knowing that there is no divine purpose for my life gives me a sense of freedom that I have never experienced before. I spent the first part of life looking to the Christian faith to help me discover what my life's purpose could be. After leaving the faith behind, I looked inside and outside myself for a clue of why I was put here on this earth. Then I began to think about this with rationality while avoiding sentimentality.

By asking the question of why am I here on earth presupposes that my existence has a greater meaning than what it actually boils down to. My parents had sex, my mom got pregnant and decided to carry the fetus to full term. That's the real reason that I'm here.

I am simply one out of an estimated seven billion people on this planet. My life is like one grain of sand on a beach glimpsing the infinity of the vast ocean in front of me. When I die, I will only be remembered until the last person who knows me dies, then all memories of my existence will cease, lost to the annals of time. How many people throughout human history have lived, died, and subsequently been forgotten? These people loved, lived, had challenges, dreams, experiences, and subsequently died. We have evolved to ruminate and contemplate our own lives with some of the brightest minds of humanity trying to uncover the "meaning of it all".

Knowing that there is no divine purpose for my life gives me a sense of freedom that I have never experienced before.I used to say that my destiny awaits me but this also assumes that someone or something made preparations at a place that I have not yet arrived to. The actual truth of my life informs me that I don't have the slightest clue where I end up or what I will be doing when I get there. All I know is that right now I am here writing this essay. If my body doesn't give out, I will be alive for another day. This is actually all that I know. I cannot go back and change the past, neither can I warn my future self about any detrimental choices I may make in the meantime.

Maybe I should take a clue from other species on this planet, and stop pondering why I am here and just live. Since there is no god handing out purposes and meanings to life, I can live without the pressure of feeling inadequate since that holy grail does not exist. I used to beat myself up because I have not discovered "the why" for my life. Instead I can experience the moment that I find myself in, knowing that it will soon pass. I can live without preconceived notions of purpose, destiny, fate and the like.

What does it matter that I have change careers numerous times or like going shopping on the weekend? All of those items that my boss spends all night emailing me about are not important in the larger scope of the universe. Again not having the shackles of purpose frees me to live life as I please, knowing that eventually I will cease to exist. Yet I do not take this moment for granted and I am grateful for the opportunity given to me by my parents to do my part to make this world a better place for those who will come after me.

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