Is A Lack of Purpose Ruining Your Life?
A personal reflection on creativity, happiness, and the pursuit of meaning.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it began, but recently I started to feel off. Not sad, exactly — just detached. I’d catch myself wondering if I was burnt out, getting older, or maybe just ready for something new. Was it time to have a child? Or maybe I just needed to get a dog.
The irony is that I’ve lived a happy life. I’m surrounded by people I love — friends, family, a partner I can be totally myself with. I have a career that’s stimulating, coworkers who double as friends, and a city that feels like home. But even with all that, something was missing.
For a time, I thought maybe it was in Paris. Slow mornings, long walks through the city, making new friends on the daily over bottles of wine in street cafes. Maybe if I were closer to the Louvre, I’d find it again.
But I didn’t need to move. I needed to listen.
The thing I was missing was purpose.
Something that had been quietly asking for my attention finally got loud enough to hear — and that something is why you’re reading this right now (thanks for being here, love you).
Building this project has brought me back to life in a way I didn’t realize I needed. I spend hours researching, discovering new creatives and founders, and connecting with people who see the world through a different lens. It’s fulfilling and grounding. I still find myself upset with the world, but when I can channel that frustration or uncertainty into something I care about, I feel calmer, more focused, more like myself.
Less numbing, more feeling, more processing.
This isn’t really about me (though I’m grateful to have come out the other side). It’s about the moments when we lose our connection to what drives us and how easy it is to mistake that loss for unhappiness.
Because when purpose slips, we reach for substitutes.
Gossip. Shopping. Scrolling. Drinking.
Small jolts of dopamine to distract from the bigger ache.
Psychologists call these behaviors emotional regulation: our brain’s way of soothing discomfort. They’re not “bad” in themselves, but they don’t get to the root of the problem. They make us feel connected for a moment and hollow the next.
You know what offers the same sense of connection — but actually fills you up?
Creating something.
Art, in any form, is connection made tangible. It helps us express what we can’t always say, to see our lives reflected back to us in color and texture. It slows us down. It makes us notice.
Neuroscience shows that creativity activates the same reward pathways as those quick-fix habits — dopamine, endorphins, the works — but in a way that replenishes rather than depletes. It’s focused engagement instead of avoidance. Calm alertness instead of chaos.
Writing, painting, designing, making music — all of it helps us process emotion, moving us from reaction to reflection. People who regularly engage in creative hobbies report lower anxiety and depression, and higher life satisfaction. Not because they’ve escaped life’s problems, but because they’ve found a way to translate them.
Still, creativity isn’t a magic fix.
I think about the artists and visionaries who’ve struggled — people whose sensitivity and brilliance came with immense pain. Research shows that creative people often score higher in openness and emotional intensity, which can make them both empathetic and vulnerable. The same imagination that dreams up beauty can just as easily magnify pain.
That duality feels human to me. Creativity can heal, but it can also exhaust. It’s not meant to save us. It’s meant to show us ourselves.
Which brings me back to purpose.
For some, purpose looks like a creative practice. For others, it’s raising a family, building a business, or helping others in quiet ways. It’s less about what you do and more about why you do it.
Studies show that people with a strong sense of purpose experience higher life satisfaction, better health, and greater resilience even under stress. It lights up the brain’s reward and meaning centers at once, turning effort into fulfillment. Purpose doesn’t make life easier, but it helps make sense of it.
When people create, they experience three things psychologists associate with long-term well-being:
Autonomy — I can shape something.
Mastery — I’m growing.
Impact — This matters to someone beyond me.
That combination — agency, growth, connection — is what turns activity into meaning.
When we lose purpose, we chase stimulation.
When we find it, we start creating — ideas, communities, families, worlds.
And even that isn’t the full picture. We’re complicated. Therapy, introspection, and inner work all have their place. Our histories shape how we see and what we seek. Most of what drives us — fear, desire, hope, inspiration — operates below the surface.
But purpose, creativity, and reflection are how we start to bring that to light. They don’t fix everything, but they make us aware, and awareness is the start of change.
If nothing else, this piece was my way of working through a season of uncertainty. I don’t have answers, but I have something that helps: creating, reflecting, building something I care about. Maybe it’ll help you, too.
If you’re struggling with your mental health, I’ve included a few resources below that have helped me and people I love.
To a steadier, more creative, more connected life,
Kelly
Mental Health Resources:
FindTreatment.gov — confidential and anonymous resource for persons seeking treatment for mental and substance use disorders in the United States.
Find A Helpline — directory of local crisis lines in 150+ countries.
Better Help — Licensed therapists online.
Open Path Collective — Affordable therapy online or in-person.