“I Don’t Know What I’m Doing All This For Anymore”
“I get up, go through the motions, check the boxes, handle my responsibilities. I keep showing up. But deep down, I’m not sure why. Nothing feels meaningful lately. I’m not inspired. I’m not working toward anything that feels real. I don’t know what I’m doing all this for anymore.”
Dear Tariq,
There’s a kind of sadness that doesn’t come with tears. It comes with silence. A blank stare at the ceiling. A slow morning that never really turns into a day. A sense of obligation so thick it chokes out desire. I felt that in your words. Not crisis. Not collapse. Just… drift.
And the thing is, no one talks about this version of it. The quiet kind. The kind that doesn’t qualify as tragedy, but still feels like a slow dissolving of something essential. You’re not lost in the dramatic sense. You haven’t given up. But something has gone flat. The pulse is still there, but the heartbeat feels muffled. You’re alive, but not animated. Awake, but not connected.
That’s what existential drift feels like. And it’s more common than most people admit.
Especially for people who’ve spent years—sometimes decades—focused on doing what they were supposed to do. You build a life. You take care of people. You show up for work. You set goals, meet deadlines, try to be useful, try to be good. And for a while, it works. Structure gives you a sense of direction. Responsibility gives you meaning. But then, slowly, it stops being enough.
Not because you’re ungrateful. But because something in you starts asking deeper questions.
What is all this for?
Is this my life—or just the life I happened to end up in?
Am I truly choosing any of this—or just continuing because it’s familiar?
And when those questions arise, it’s jarring. Especially if you’ve been functioning well. Because from the outside, nothing looks wrong. You're still getting things done. You're still answering emails. You’re still saying “I’m good” when people ask. But internally, there’s a fog. A sense that something has been misfiled. A growing suspicion that you’re moving forward but no longer toward anything that feels alive.
You’re not alone in this.
And you’re not broken.
You’re just waking up to the limitations of achievement-based identity. To the hollowness of perpetual doing without deeper alignment. You’re starting to sense that purpose is not a checklist—it’s a conversation. And the old answers you used to rely on aren’t holding up anymore.
This is a hard place to be. Because the world doesn’t give you space to name it. There’s pressure to stay grateful. To keep moving. To not let the existential weight slow you down. You hear things like “just take a break” or “get inspired again” or “maybe you need a new hobby.” But none of that touches what you’re actually feeling.
Because this isn’t about surface-level boredom.
This is about meaning.
And meaning doesn’t come from changing your scenery. It comes from changing your relationship to yourself.
That’s the thing no one tells you. We think we’ll feel purposeful when we’re doing important things. But often, the feeling of purpose returns when we’re willing to sit still long enough to hear what our life is actually asking of us now.
Because here’s the truth: the version of you that set your earlier goals is not the version of you who’s here now. And it’s okay if the things that used to matter no longer do. It doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’ve evolved. But your life hasn’t caught up yet.
And it’s the in-between—between what no longer fits and what hasn’t yet arrived—that feels so disorienting.
This is a liminal place. And in liminal places, clarity is a slow burn.
You don’t need to blow everything up. You don’t need to reinvent your whole life by Tuesday. You just need to start telling the truth to yourself. Noticing what you’ve been pretending still fits. Naming the rituals that feel empty. Acknowledging the version of you who’s showing up out of habit, not desire.
And then… pausing.
That’s the hardest part. Not rushing to fill the void. Not panic-pivoting. But letting the void be. Letting the questions hang in the air like incense. Letting the silence be a place of reverence, not punishment.
Tariq, when you say, “I don’t know what I’m doing all this for anymore,” what I hear isn’t failure.
What I hear is readiness.
Readiness to stop performing a version of life that no longer reflects you. Readiness to listen more than explain. Readiness to stop living from the outside in—and begin again from the inside out.
The next chapter doesn’t need to be bold or dramatic. It just needs to be honest.
Start there.
–RJ