I’m Not Religious, but I Have Faith

When I was in my early teens, I was struggling to come up with a compelling reason to go on living. I was a true misfit; I didn’t feel a sense of belonging anywhere, not even in my own family. At school, the other kids almost never talked to me except to make fun of me. My sense of otherness and isolation was so acute, I actually wondered if I might be an alien trapped in the body of a human. An alien who had no idea where he came from and had never met another of his kind (like Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). And to make matters worse, life had yet to show me anything that made me excited to be alive, anything that was worth all the pain. I was struggling to stay afloat in a deep, seemingly endless ocean of emptiness and desolation. I literally had no sense of there being anything to live for. So I asked myself, “What’s the point of going on?”

The only answer I could come up with was a story my parents had told me.

I was my parents’ firstborn, but I wasn’t their first attempt at having a child. There were two before me; both ended in miscarriages. The way my parents put it, my mom’s body simply didn’t want to be pregnant. And when it was my turn, her body tried to do the same thing to me. Yet somehow, I survived. Like Harry Potter, I was “the boy who lived”. Reflecting on that story, I couldn’t help but think there had to be a reason why I made it out of my mom’s womb and into the world. There had to be something worth living for, even if I hadn’t found it yet. So I clung to that thread of hope like a lifeline. My only reason to go on living was the belief that there was a reason that would be revealed to me in time.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and I discovered Aikido, a Japanese martial art. Somehow, that unlocked something inside me. I had a newfound sense of excitement about life, and a greater ability to see beauty in the world than I’d enjoyed previously. Because of that, I was able to make peace with my otherness. In particular, I let go of my longing to be accepted by my schoolmates (I was in high school at the time). To borrow a line from Hamlet, I realized that there were more things in Heaven and Earth than were dreamt of in their philosophies, so why should I worry about what they think of me? I didn’t yet know what was put in this life for, but I was more confident than ever that a sense of fulfillment was possible for me.

So my belief that life would show me something worth living for if I held on long enough was vindicated. But back when I was trying to find a reason not to end my life, there was no way I could’ve seen what was in store for me.

All I had to go on was … faith.

It wasn’t faith in some higher power. At least, not in a well-established conception of a higher power, like the God of the Abrahamic religions. It was a simple faith that I was put in this world, this life, for a reason. Nothing more ethereal or esoteric than that. No need to join this or that religion. No need to believe in this or that deity or cosmic power.

I’m a skeptic by nature. You can tell me how you think the universe works, but I’m not going to take your (or anyone else’s) word for it. I don’t care who you are or what sort of authority you claim to hold. To borrow and adapt a line from Yoda: “My own counsel will I keep, on what I believe!”

For me, faith is just a practical — and even rational — approach to life.

As I’ve written previously:

No one understands the mysteries of existence so profoundly that they can definitively say you’re worthless. If someone tells you you’re worthless, all that means is that they can’t see your worth. And so what if they can’t? Neither they nor anyone else have been anointed by God or any force of cosmic consequence to determine who has value and who doesn’t. Have faith that you were put into this world, this life, for a reason. Even if you don’t yet have any idea what that reason is, just know there is one, take strength from that, and make it a priority mission of your life to figure out what you’re here for. Once you understand that your value comes not from other people’s opinion of you, but from the very fact that you’re here in the first place, then no one can take your sense of self-worth away from you, no matter how harsh their words — whether to your face or via social media.

(Although the above excerpt is originally from an article I wrote for men, the words apply to everyone.) In the following clip from The Matrix Reloaded, imagine that Neo (Keanu Reeves) is you, and all the bullets flying at him are everything anyone has ever said or done that made you doubt your own worth or feel worthless:

That’s what it feels like to have your self-worth built on a foundation that no one can take away from you. So I’m not here to win converts to any particular religion. (I actually have nothing against people who are religious, so long as they aren’t using their religion as an excuse to be assholes.) But I’m a big believer in faith.

Thank you for reading,

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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