Hi there,
What’s your life purpose?
Early Aspirations and Disappointments
I think it’s a good question. Our answer changes over time. When I was studying for what in the Dark Ages was called the Inter Cert, I thought my life purpose was to do my best in my first State Examinations.
Unfulfilled Success
When I received the results, I felt unexpectedly disappointed. Not that the results weren’t good. They were. But I felt strangely unfulfilled by them. Getting the highest grades I could didn’t, after the act, seem to be attuned to my life purpose.
Envy and Realizations
I remember envying another pupil who did about as well as me but he seemed a better balanced, socially engaged human being.
Spiritual Search and Disillusionment
Over the next two years, my Leaving Cert period, I got caught up in the charismatic renewal. Then, I perceived my life purpose was to become attuned to God’s call for me. Yes, I’m an atheist. So clearly that ‘life purpose’ didn’t last either.
Questioning Life Purpose in Seminary
The turmoil of my seminary years also centred on the core question of what is my life purpose? Was it to be a priest? Was it to be celibate? Was it to obey the decisions of fallible human beings whose judgements I was to regard as the Will of God for me?
Challenging the Vow of Poverty
Oh, and that old canard, the vow of ‘poverty’: I ate better and was financially secure for life with it. A travesty, really, to call that ‘poverty’.
Moment of Inner Freedom
So, was all that my life purpose? Clearly not, as I finally judged, a decade after joining the Marist Fathers, outgrowing my conditioning as a Catholic child, youth and, then, young man.
I do clearly remember the moment of inner freedom, close to ordination, when, sitting alone in the passenger seat of a car while the Superior stopped at a house to do some errand, I realised that I could choose an altogether different life than the trajectory upon which I’d been embarked. I could envisage a totally new, different life purpose.
Choosing a New Path
And I did. I took leave of absence for two years, needed only one, made my definitive decision having realised that what I wanted to do was to write. I could never freely write as a member of the clergy. I could only express the party line. I would be constrained, inhibited, censured by the Church and self-censuring.
Delaying the Dream for Stability
For years, I further delayed my perceived life purpose as a writer, choosing teaching instead, with its permanent and pensionable stability and income stream.
Teaching vs. Writing
But, no, teaching was never my life purpose, even though I wasn’t bad at it. The urge to write was strong in me. And so, after five years, with the support of my wife, I chucked teaching to see if I could make it as a writer.
Early Writing Career
Writing weekly columns for The Irish Times for seven years, and other columns in Reality and Face Up and elsewhere felt closer to my life purpose. Although, in the offices of the newspaper of record I had imposter syndrome. And writing for Catholic magazines became more and more of a challenge, as I sought to write as a non-believer with integrity and authenticity to a readership of believers.
Bridging Belief and Unbelief
I enjoyed that challenge and was particularly chuffed when the Editor asked if he could use some of my material on Mass leaflets. I felt I’d cracked it. I’d managed to find a language which traversed the ocean of unbelief to a community of believers. A case of thesis, antithesis and synthesis: belief, unbelief and creating a language spanning both worldviews.
Fulfilment in Book Writing
Writing books was fulfilling. My first book on men’s health did quite well. It was translated into several languages and, when its US edition landed on the desk of a Barbara Walters-produced coast-to-coast show, my US publishers were very excited. They were going to fly me over at their expense and the TV station would provide accommodation. But before it got nailed down, 9/11 happened. All flights were grounded. The interview never happened.
Handling Disappointment
I was disappointed. But, just like when I didn’t get a Head of Religious Education job in England, I lived by the phrase ‘good luck, bad luck, who knows?’ I might have mucked up the interview and torpedoed my future writing career.
Men’s Health: Not My True Calling
Besides, men’s health wasn’t really my topic. The articles that drew the greatest response in the Times were when I wrote about religion, from a critical viewpoint.
Exploring Different Writing Genres
There followed other books, like Write Way to Stop Smoking, which was critically acclaimed by health professionals at home and abroad but didn’t sell many copies. Was that my life purpose? Hardly, as I’d never been an addicted smoker.
Returning to Personal Narratives
All along, I’d been trying to tell the story of my time in the seminary. I’d even given up another gig, as commissioning editor with an academic publisher, to have another attempt at it. I wanted to write my story rather than edit and publish other people’s books, at least one of which was promoting religion!
A Period of Service and Sacrifice
I spent years as a Humanist celebrant, a job I enjoyed and was good at. During that period, I hardly wrote at all; so busy was I preparing ceremonies, conducting them and doing all the administration before and after each wedding, baby naming or funeral.
Refocusing on Writing in My 60s
I hardly conduct any ceremonies nowadays having decided that I wanted to spend my 60s writing. Of all the things I’ve written, I am proudest of my two memoirs, In My Gut, I Don’t Believe and Saved by a Woman.
Reflecting on Life Purpose at 62
And now, aged 62, the age my father was when he died, and two years older than my brother David was when he took his own life, I again ask: what is my life purpose?
It is to keep well and healthy and true to myself, to enjoy this time in our lives with my soul friend and wife Ruth, to do the necessary tasks of house and home, and, yes, to write.
Question for the Reader
So, what is your life purpose?
Happy days,
Joe
P.S. Our new song, ‘So Glad I Married You’, sung by The Rayne, and written by The Rayne, Andrea Patron and Joe Armstrong, will be released next Friday. You can pre-save it now for free by clicking here.
Saved by a Woman is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions.
If you go to Amazon and it says a particular edition isn’t available, simply change the domain name or territory in the URL or address bar. For instance, change "Amazon.co.uk" to "Amazon.com" or "Amazon.de" etc.
You can listen to fascinating questions about godlessness at the launch of the first memoir, In My Gut, I Don’t Believe, on the Losing My Religion Podcast or watch it on YouTube.
You can listen to more fascinating questions at the launch of Saved by a Woman on the Losing My Religion Podcast or the Joe the Human post and Podcast.
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