Why don’t I feel fulfilled? How do I find my purpose? Learning to live a life you’ll love to death in the modern world.
What if the reason you don’t feel satisfied or fulfilled isn’t that something’s wrong with you, or even with your life?
What if it’s because you’ve been handed the wrong instructions from the very beginning?
The Confusing Search for a Good Life
Most of us spend our lives searching for that elusive “good life.”
We try every strategy the world suggests:
Find your purpose.
Chase your dreams.
Practice gratitude.
Live in the now.
Think positive.
We read the books, listen to the podcasts, pin the quotes, make the vision boards. We tell ourselves we just need to think differently, try harder, or finally discover that one missing piece.
Yet even with all these efforts, most people quietly wonder: Why does contentment always feel just out of reach? Why does life still feel like a problem to solve?
Why We Never Feel Like We Have Enough (Or Are Enough)
It’s not just about chasing achievements or accumulating stuff. Beneath it all, there’s a subtler hunger:
The sense that we don’t quite have enough—of security, love, recognition, or meaning.
The suspicion that we, ourselves, are not quite enough—never quite measuring up to the “someone” we’re supposed to be.
So we keep pushing, keep striving, keep fixing. Every accomplishment just shifts the bar a little higher. No matter how much you do, “enough” keeps moving further away.
The Treadmill of Chasing Outcomes
Why is it so exhausting? Because all those strategies—finding purpose, chasing dreams, practicing positivity—are usually aimed at producing specific outcomes:
Feeling fulfilled.
Feeling satisfied.
Feeling at ease.
But outcomes, by their nature, are things we can’t fully control. They’re always a little bit outside our reach, always at the mercy of changing circumstances, shifting moods, or other people’s choices.
So we end up on a kind of emotional treadmill: always moving, never arriving.
It’s no wonder we feel tired, restless, or disappointed.
The Stacked Deck: Why Contentment Seems Impossible
If you’ve ever wondered why fulfillment and satisfaction seem so elusive, it’s not just you. The game is stacked from the start.
Let’s break down the rules you’ve been handed (but never agreed to):
Fulfillment: You’re supposed to live in a way that’s truly “you.” But what does that mean, exactly? Who decides who you’re “meant” to be?
Satisfaction: You’re supposed to have everything you “need.” But the world around you is always offering more, newer, better—and your sense of what you “need” keeps growing.
Wellbeing: You’re supposed to feel that everything is “right.” But life is unpredictable, and “right” can change overnight.
Most advice out there tells you to chase all three, and then, finally, you’ll feel content.
But getting all of these to line up at the same time? That’s a tall order. It’s no wonder people feel frustrated, burned out, and always behind.
It sounds straightforward, but in practice, it’s like trying to win at a game where the rules keep changing. What you need today might not be what you need tomorrow. Who you want to be can shift with every experience. “Right” can look different every year, season, or even moment.
It’s a never ending, overwhelming, exhausting, and messy treadmill; one that we’ll stay on forever if we don’t make a change.
The Concept Hiding in Plain Sight
Here’s the turning point:
All those outcomes we’re chasing - fulfillment, satisfaction, wellbeing, contentment - are just that: outcomes. They’re effects, not causes.
And the more we try to control them directly, the more they slip away.
But there’s something you can always control:
How you choose to be, in each moment.
If you base your sense of contentment not on outcomes (which come and go), but on the way you choose to show up, suddenly you have your hands back on the steering wheel.
You decide how you want to respond.
You decide what kind of person you want to be, right now.
You decide what you can appreciate in yourself, in this moment.
It’s a simple concept—but not always easy to practice. It asks you to shift your focus from controlling results to choosing your response.
The Path Forward
When you let your contentment depend on your own choices—how you show up, how you act, how you relate to yourself and the world—you discover a kind of quiet power. Suddenly, contentment isn’t locked behind perfect circumstances or a perfect version of you. It’s available, here and now, each time you choose.
This isn’t another “life hack.” It’s a new relationship with yourself.
If you want a down-to-earth way to actually walk this path, that’s what my process, Guided Self-Mentorship, is all about.
If you’re curious, visit my website to see how you can start this path for yourself.
