Why Does Getting What You Wanted Still Feel Empty?
Have you ever caught yourself thinking:
"My life feels hollow."
"What is the meaning of life, anyway?"
"Who am I, really — and what am I even living for?"
"I finally got what I wanted. So why do I feel so empty?"
Whenever I hear the phrase "the meaning of life," I'm taken back to something Venerable Beopryun said years ago.
Someone asked him, "What is the meaning of life? How do we find it?"
He replied, almost casually:
"Life has no meaning. Stop looking for one."
I was stunned.
Everyone around me seemed to insist that finding your own meaning was the whole point of being alive.
So why would he say the opposite? That question stayed with me for years.
Then, about two years ago, I came across a dharma talk by another teacher, Venerable Beopsang — and I began to understand why that first monk had spoken so firmly.
The answer wasn't some grand philosophical theory. It came down to a much simpler, more fundamental misunderstanding — about who we are, and how the world actually works.
And as time passed, just a few days ago, I came across another talk by Ven. Beopsang.
It was about the hollowness we so often feel, and his teaching left an even more profound impression.
So many of us pour our lives into chasing goals.
But why is it that after finally reaching them, we so often find ourselves facing deep emptiness and hollowness instead?
What is that emptiness, really?
Why Getting What You Want Still Leaves You Wanting
We spend years grinding toward our goals — a stable job, a promotion, a marriage, financial security.
Everyone else seems to be doing the same, so we assume it must be the right path.
We tell ourselves just a little more and keep pushing, until one day we actually get there.
And then something odd happens.
The satisfaction doesn't stay.
You buy the house, thinking the anxiety will finally stop. It fades within weeks. Then you see a friend with a bigger place, and a new target quietly forms.
You spend years focused on your child's education, and when they get into university, instead of joy, you're hit by an unexpected emptiness. Depression, even.
Achievement leads to a new goal. A new goal leads to more striving. We set another goal, tighten our grip, and begin running again.
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| Photo by the author |
Ven. Beopsang calls this living from chugusim — a constant drive to pursue and acquire.
When I first heard that word two years ago, it stopped me cold. My eyes went wide. It felt like being struck on the head — and I started crying.
I had been living this way my entire life. I thought it was just... normal. I didn't even realize I was doing it. The tears wouldn't stop.
Ven. Beopsang cuts straight to the root of why we stay unsatisfied no matter how much we accumulate:
we don't truly know who we are, and we don't understand how the world moves.
That fundamental ignorance keeps us trapped.
Because we don't know who we really are, we mistake things for ourselves — jobs, money, social status — things that only appear temporarily through circumstance and then dissolve.
We treat the thoughts and feelings that flicker through us moment to moment as fully ours. We assume our body belongs to us.
But the Buddha took all the things we call "I" and "mine" and dismantled them one by one.
"Nothing," he said, "is truly mine, truly me, truly my self."
Because if something were really ours, we'd be able to control it.
And nothing — not one thing — stays put when we tell it to.
Think about it.
Even a full bank account scatters when its conditions run out.
The body ages and gets sick no matter how firmly we refuse.
Thoughts and feelings arrive uninvited and leave the same way.
We've spent our whole lives gripping things we never actually owned, and suffering for it.
And because we don't understand how the world works, we fall into another trap: we believe that filling every external condition — perfectly, completely — will finally make us feel okay.
That if we just get everything right on the outside, the unease on the inside will stop.
That's the real reason having everything still leaves us empty.
Because we've spent our lives trying to fill a self we misunderstood from the beginning.
We've been trying to fill a false self. And a false self has no bottom.
When we've been chasing a version of ourselves that was never real to begin with, what's left after the achieving is done is exhaustion. And a hollow quiet.
Not Knowing — The Way Life Actually Moves
So if the self built from shifting conditions is a fiction, who are we really?
And how are we supposed to live?
To answer that, Buddhism asks us to look at the world itself differently — to question whether life even has a fixed destination we're supposed to reach.
Ven. Beopsang is clear: there is no perfect life.
The world moves according to pratītyasamutpāda — dependent origination — things arising and passing away through conditions, nothing more.
No one can know what will happen next. The only wisdom available is what he calls "not knowing" — trusting the flow rather than forcing it.
The Saṃyutta Nikāya, one of the core Buddhist texts, puts it this way:
"When this exists, that comes to be.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this doesn't exist, that doesn't come to be.
With the cessation of this, that ceases."
In plain terms: nothing happens without cause. Nothing appears out of nowhere.
Storm clouds gather, and rain falls. Rain falls, and you open an umbrella. Simple as that.
A river doesn't become a river only after it reaches the sea. It already is a river, in the flowing itself.
Life itself unfolds within that flow.
The world is not a project you can manage.
So please — don't reject what has already arisen within you, or push yourself harder for not being where you think you should be.
The wiser move is to stand in "not knowing," and let the great current of life be what it is.
Already Whole — The Rest That Was Always Here
When emptiness hits, most of us respond by getting busier.
We've barely finished one achievement before we're lacing up for the next, terrified of falling behind.
We study more, acquire more, and sometimes even turn inner peace into another goal — another achievement project to drive ourselves through.
But not every problem yields to more effort.
What's needed now isn't more action.
It's the practice of setting the pursuing down for a moment.
Ven. Beopsang says it's actually simple: just pause and let go.
That simple pause is already a way of returning to the present moment.
Look at whatever is in front of you — not to analyze it, not to improve it, but as if you were born just now and this is the first thing you've ever seen.
The real end of suffering isn't found by adding more external conditions or finally discovering the grand meaning of your life.
Underneath the self that gets tossed around by circumstances — the false self — there is already an awake and living ground of mind that lacks nothing.
Buddhism calls this your original nature, or Buddha-nature.
When you glimpse it — even for a moment — the desperate reaching for meaning outside yourself stops.
And the emptiness and suffering dissolve, as if they were never really there.
Note: If terms like "original nature," or "Buddha-nature" feel abstract or unfamiliar, earlier pieces on "What Is Non-Self?" and the question "Where Is Your Mind Right Now?" may help.
They're about learning to tell the difference between the mind that changes and the ground that doesn't.
Finding your way back to that original, clear nature isn't complicated.
Instead of searching for some grand purpose, try this: throughout the day, ask yourself quietly — "Am I awake right now?"
The moment you ask, you naturally return to this moment.
And then, just notice what you're doing.
The sound of water, the feel of the dishes in your hands — that quiet knowing that's present while you wash up.
The warmth of coffee as you take a sip — that simple aliveness in the tasting.
The few seconds of stillness at a red light on the way to work — that being, just being.
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| Photo by the author |
This is what Buddhism calls sati — mindfulness.
And it's the moment your original nature, untouched by conditions, wakes up inside ordinary life.
You don't have to find the meaning first.
You don't have to be certain about the direction.
Life is already quietly continuing, right here.
The ease we've been searching for doesn't arrive after we've answered every question.
It opens when we're simply present — awake to this moment.
That's when the restless outward searching finally stills, and what was always already here becomes clear.
Returning Home to Yourself
If these words offered a moment of quiet comfort, you might enjoy exploring a few more reflections on inner peace.
They are written as gentle reminders to help you untangle the busy patterns of the mind and find a steady, joyful presence in your everyday life.
[Why Thinking Causes Suffering — And How to Stay Awake in Reality]
[Thoughts Won't Stop? Here's What's Really Happening in Your Mind]
[Who Am I? Buddhist Insights on Ego, Identity, and Anxiety: Beyond Modern Psychology]
A Gentle Voice for Your Reflection
Today's insights were deeply inspired by the teachings of Ven. Beopsang.
Reading is a wonderful way to plant the seeds of truth, but hearing these insights spoken aloud can anchor them even more deeply within.
To enrich your practice, I encourage you to watch his video below.
For the core of today's reflection, you can jump straight to [17:00 ~ 32:26], [38:36 ~ 52:00], and [56:00 ~ End].
May his words offer the exact reassurance your heart needs right now.
"May all living beings be healthy, happy, and prosperous. May they be safe, secure, and free from all dangers and enemies."
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