Losing Sight of My Purpose
Lately I feel empty. Not the kind of quiet that comes after a good day, but a hollow that follows me into the morning and sits with me through the night. I cannot summon the energy I used to have. Things that once felt simple and bright now take a lot of effort to care about. I am not just bored. I am drained. I am tired in a way that sleep does not fix.
There is also a deeper loss beneath the tiredness. My faith, which used to feel steady and close, feels distant right now. I can ask the questions, sit in the silence, try to pray, and still feel like the answers are far away. That kind of spiritual fog makes everything else harder. When you cannot rely on the compass you have trusted, direction disappears. The future that used to feel like a road opens up into mist. I go through the motions of work and responsibilities, but the why behind those things is fuzzy.
I do not want to make this about being accomplished or unaccomplished. That conversation feels hollow to me at the moment. The point is this: the parts of life that used to light me up no longer do. I used to feel a charge, an eagerness to do the next thing. Now I feel flat. Even the corgis' chaos that used to make me laugh can land like background noise. It is strange and frightening to feel so unhurried by joy. The zest has gone missing and I do not know exactly where it went.
If you are reading this and you understand that feeling, know you are not alone. This is more common than people say. It is not a moral failing. It is a condition of being human. Sometimes the tank runs low and we need a long refill. Sometimes life rearranges priorities and the heart needs time to catch up. Sometimes faith bends and then slowly reshapes itself into something different. None of those things mean the person you were is gone forever.
Here are the things I am trying when the emptiness takes over and the energy will not come.
Start with the smallest things. Instead of forcing big decisions, I try to do one small, concrete thing each day. Make a cup of coffee. Walk the dogs. Empty the dishwasher. Small actions are not glamorous, but they keep the world turning while the bigger engines warm up.
Name the feeling. Say out loud, I feel empty. Say, I am tired. Saying the words to a friend or a counselor moves the feeling out of isolation. It becomes something we can look at together rather than carry alone.
Give myself permission to rest without shame. Rest is not a reward for productivity. It is a necessity. When energy is low, pushing harder only deepens the fatigue. It is okay to take time to heal and to pause without having to justify it.
Ask faith questions honestly. If belief feels distant, I talk about it. I read, I listen, and I let the questions be real. Doubt is often part of a journey, not necessarily the end of it. For me that means sitting in church sometimes with no clarity and letting the silence be part of the practice.
Look for small sparks. Sometimes a moment surfaces into light. A short phone call with a friend, a quiet sunset, a paragraph in a book that lands like an anchor. Those small resonances are proof that life still has color even when my palette feels muted.
Rebuild routines that respect the fatigue. I am trying shorter rituals that do not ask too much. Ten minutes of journaling. A short walk. A simple prayer or breath before bed. When I cannot find big energy, a gentle rhythm matters.
Be patient and kind to myself. The culture tells us to fix things quickly. The soul does not always cooperate. It is okay to move slowly. It is okay to be softer with yourself than you would be with anyone else.
If you want one small step to try right now, write for five minutes about the last time you felt alive. No judgment, no polishing. Just memory. Often that single paragraph uncovers something small we can return to.
I do not have a tidy resolution. I only have small steps and the intention to try them. If you are walking through this with me, let us be gentle with ourselves and with each other. We do not have to rush back to certainty. We only have to keep showing up, even when the energy is thin. That shows we are still moving, still present, and still capable of finding meaning again.
—Dr. Nick
