How to Find Your Purpose as an Atheist
I’ve been an atheist for over a decade since my deconversion from Christianity in 2015. During my reconstruction into my own personal atheistic life philosophy, I encountered the existential crisis common to those going through transitions like these. After years of being told that my purpose was to glorify God, convert others to my religion, and be obsessed with behavioral perfection, I found myself wondering what my purpose would be moving forward as an atheist.
Looking for a Universal Purpose After Christianity
The problem I encountered was caused by the unreasonable expectations indoctrinated into me by my previous religion. Christianity had told me that there is a universal purpose to my life and when I left it, my subconscious sought a direct replacement. Only this time, I was looking for a universal purpose for my life from a secular viewpoint. I eventually came up with the idea that the closest purpose I could assign to human and other sentient life is that we are here to survive and thrive. However, I soon realized that this was only our living instinct, but not necessarily what we’re here to do. And again, I was still looking for that universal purpose I lost when I left Christianity.
Religion Sold Me a Problem I Didn’t Have
I eventually realized through my research and contemplation that the idea of a universal purpose for our lives was fabricated by religion. Religious people created the problem of needing a universal purpose for our lives and told us that they had the solution.This is so typical of religion, telling you that you need something (like God) to survive and thrive when you don’t and are perfectly fine as you are. Once I understood that a universal purpose wasn’t needed to live a good life, I started to wonder if I needed purpose at all. The answer I found was yes, but not quite what I expected.
What People Really Need
We as human beings don’t need to know why we’re here or how we got here to live fulfilling lives with a sense of purpose. Indeed, that’s great news because no one really knows how we got here anyway. What we do need instead are things to motivate us to keep moving forward. However, these motivators aren’t like a universal purpose that applies to everyone. While many of us share similar sources of purpose, ultimately, what motivates us individually provides our unique purpose. This could be anything from our relationships to our jobs to our hopes to our personal growth to our desire to understand the world around us. Furthermore, because motivation comes from investment, we also create purpose for ourselves wherever we invest our time and energy. Therefore, investment creates purpose.
My Struggle with Lack of Purpose
As someone who spent over a decade in unemployment due to mental illness, I’ve spent a significant portion of my life feeling a lack of purpose. For a long time, my only purpose was to survive the pain of mental illness because I knew that as long as I survived, there was hope of healing in my future. I also didn’t want to kill myself because I loved my wife and didn’t want to leave her with that suffering. So, I kept living because of these significant, but not entirely fulfilling sources of purpose. Because of my inability to make any significant contributions to my home, my family, and the world other than my own survival, I felt the pain of lacking purpose in my life. I felt like my life didn’t really matter that much most of the time and I often felt like I was just wasting it trying to survive another day. This feeling continued even though days, months, and years went by without any significant healing or progress.
Years later, as I finally began to find genuine healing from my mental health problems and become more active in my life again, I discovered that purpose comes from investing in yourself and in others. Before my healing process though, investing in anything was extremely difficult because of my mental health problems, resulting in those many years of living without feeling much purpose.
Keep It Simple
Honestly, those struggling with purpose have a tendency to make this pursuit more difficult than it is. Contrary to our struggle, it’s actually quite simple: Better yourself and the lives of others, because that’s where purpose comes from–investment. It’s not some universal concept like worshiping a god but instead a feeling you get when you take good care of yourself and eventually have the capacity to share your time and energy with others as well.
Focus on Yourself and Help Others as a Result
The whole “better yourself and the lives of others” may seem like a universal source of purpose, but it’s actually more of a concept by which you’ll be able to find what’s specifically meaningful to you. Furthermore, I’ve also noticed that when I focus on self-care and improving myself, others invariably benefit as well. We are social creatures and in order to better ourselves, we have to create value that benefits others as well. Therefore, by bettering ourselves, we automatically end up bettering others.
Anything morally beneficial to oneself will also directly or indirectly benefit society, thus constituting a potential source of purpose. It doesn’t matter whether you get your purpose from your job, your family, your friends, or other pursuits in your life. What matters is that you’re living your life in alignment with your values, because if you do that, you and others will always benefit.
Live by YOUR Values
Don’t let other people try to push their values on you, because if you do, they will benefit but you likely won’t. You won’t be living from your heart, doing what matters to you, and being who you really are! Instead of absorbing the values of those around you, begin to ask yourself what matters to you. What brings you joy, motivation, and excitement? What makes you angry? Where do you invest most of your time and energy? These are the types of questions to ask yourself if you feel like you don’t have any purpose because these questions will reveal what matters to you. If these questions don’t reveal anything, you probably just need to start trying new things and investing yourself more deeply in things. Investment and commitment is where you will find purpose.
When the Pursuit of Purpose Needs to Take a Back Seat
I would like to note that if you’re going through depression right now, and feel like nothing matters to you, that’s common–although not a great place to be. It’s called anhedonia, where the things that used to matter to you and motivate you are no longer meaningful or appealing to you. This is a common side effect of experiencing depression–no longer being able to feel motivation or a sense of purpose. Just know that there is hope for you of healing and once again being able to feel motivation and purpose. I know because I’ve lived with severe depression, anxiety, anhedonia, fatigue and more for a long time and I’ve finally begun to heal and feel purpose again. If you’re stuck right now, dealing with any disability or mental illness, know that it's okay to only find purpose in taking care of yourself when you’re unwell. Afterall, if you’re not well, it’s going to be difficult to create value in your life, so you must focus on taking good care of yourself. Don’t pressure yourself to function highly like those who are well. Just focus on getting professional help and introducing better self-care into your routine. Healing will come with time if you choose to treat yourself with love and care. Greater sources of purpose can come later.
Evaluate Yourself
For those of you who are in a state of wellness though, you already have sources of purpose in your life; you just have to notice and acknowledge them. If what you’re doing with your life doesn’t seem to matter to you, first assess yourself for depression and mental health challenges. This is critically important because nothing you change in your life will make you feel a sense of purpose again if you are unwell, unless of course the changes specifically improve your general wellbeing. Secondly, if signs of mental or emotional unwellness aren’t apparent, ask yourself if you’re doing what you really want to do with your time. Some good questions to ask yourself could be:
Are you living the life YOU want to live or the life that others have conditioned you to live?
Are you being who you really are, or are you hiding your true self out of fear of rejection like I did for most of my life?
Are you living by your own chosen values or the values your family, friends, and society have pressured upon you?
If you answer these questions honestly, you may gain some valuable insight into your feeling of purposelessness. While the value you’re currently providing to yourself and others is definitely a potential source of purpose, if it is not creating the feeling of purpose within you that you’re craving, you’re probably not living in alignment with your true self and personal values.
We Want to Feel Purpose, Not Just Know It
This leads me to the ultimate secret about purpose that I’ve recently discovered: What people crave isn’t universal or objective purpose, but instead the feeling of purpose. It doesn’t matter if what you’re doing with your life seems purposeful to someone else if it doesn’t…feel…purposeful…to you. Therefore, aim to find what makes you feel like your life matters. The best way to do this is to be yourself and use what makes you special to improve the lives of others and yourself. There is no need for you to try to be someone else and do what they’re good at. Instead, you need to discover who you are and what makes you special and give yourself permission to live authentically, because authenticity is the true source of purpose.
