In this piece, I’m going to tell you why that nagging sense that something’s missing in your life, the one you’ve probably tried to silence more than once, isn’t the enemy of happiness, but perhaps the only honest way to get close to it.
Sounds backwards? Good. That means you’re paying attention.
You ever notice how people talk about happiness like it’s a finish line? “Now I feel complete,” they say, usually after buying a house, marrying someone, getting a job, maybe squeezing in yet another spiritual retreat for good measure.
And you think… complete?
Wait, like, as in… done?
Whole?
That’s it?
Sounds comforting, I’ll admit.
A tidy little package, tick all the boxes, collect your happiness medal, fade into a life of sunsets and soft lighting.
But let’s be honest, that’s not how any of this works.
It’s all an illusion.
A trap.
A clever story we’ve been sold, maybe to cope, maybe to keep buying things, maybe just because it’s too damn scary to admit the truth.
And what’s the truth, you ask?
That we’re never complete. That we’re not supposed to be.
I know, I know. Don’t kill me yet. Bit bleak on the surface. But stay with me.
If you’ve been here for a while, first, thank you, and second, you know I’m not in the least interested in spoon-feeding you motivational fluff. You have millions of coaches out there for that.
There are no ten-step guides to inner peace, no pastel-coloured platitudes about loving yourself no matter what.
We, people, hurt.
Deeply.
We’ve lost.
And you see, people who go to therapy, maybe after dragging years of grief, anger, fear, confusion. Do you know what none of them say when they sit down on that couch?
“I’m happy.”
Not once.
Because the very act of starting therapy means you’ve already acknowledged something is missing.
Something hurts.
You’re not whole.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s not a failure.
Maybe that’s just… being fucking human.
Pardon my French.
We’re born into lack. That is a fact.
Lack isn’t a glitch, it’s the structure.
The longing for something more, something we can’t name half the time, that’s what keeps us moving. It’s what makes us fall in love, chase dreams, cry in the shower, write poems, sign up for late-night courses, learn how to pole-dance at forty-two.
You might be thinking…
“But I don’t want to feel incomplete. I want to feel fulfilled. I want to be done.”
Of course you do. We all do.
But let me ask you something, what would your life look like if there were nothing left to want?
It’d be still. Too still. A kind of psychological death, wouldn’t it?
Funny thing is, the idea of wanting nothing, no tension, no desire, no longing, is what some ancient philosophies actually strive for.
Nirvana, they call it.
Utopia, I call it.
From a psychoanalytic point of view, that’s not peace, it’s death. It’s the end of wanting. The end of life.
And you? You’re still here. Which means there’s something you still want. And that’s not your weakness, that’s your proof of life.
Now, let’s talk about this illusion of happiness as “completeness.”
It’s everywhere in our culture, isn’t it?
All of them whispering the same thing, if you do the right things, if you fix your traumas and feng shui your flat and meditate and get closure with your ex and cut out gluten, you’ll be complete. Done. Happy.
But here’s the thing, even if you tick all those boxes, something will still feel off.
Because ticking boxes doesn’t satisfy desire. Desire doesn’t want to be resolved. It wants to keep desiring. (Disclaimer: when I say ‘desire’, I mean it as the psychoanalytic term, that drive, inner force that keeps you going.)
Gabriel Rolón, a psychoanalyst I truly like, talks about a very moving story in his book La felicidad: más allá de la ilusión. It goes like this:
He once dreamed of playing piano as a child, but couldn’t afford one. His father, a construction worker, brought him a used guitar in a brown paper bag instead. That gesture, small and enormous at once, planted the seed. Years later, when Rolón could finally buy a piano, he didn’t become a concert pianist. But he studied. He played. And every note he learned was a tiny act of joy.
Not completion. Not arrival. Just… joy. In the middle of the lack.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe happiness isn’t about completing the puzzle. Maybe it’s about loving the piece you don’t have. Maybe it’s about knowing there’s a gap and still saying, “You know what? I’m here. I’m playing. And that’s enough.”
Because here’s what we get wrong, we think the lack is the problem.
No, the problem is our refusal to accept it.
Our insistence that it shouldn’t be there. That we should have everything. That if we don’t, something’s wrong.
But what if that something missing is the very thing that gives shape to everything else?
Think about it. When you fall in love, it’s not because someone completes you like a missing puzzle piece. And if you believe that, may I kindly direct you to skip the new Bridgerton season? You fall in love because they unsettle you. They stir up your lack. They make you want. And it’s the wanting that makes it real.
Even our memories play tricks on us. Rolón, in his book, talks about how we romanticise childhood as a time of pure happiness. But when you really look, the picture doesn’t hold. You weren’t always smiling. You were scared. Confused. But now, years later, we crop out the discomfort, filter the image, and tell ourselves we were complete back then.
We weren’t.
We were just too young to know what was missing.
And then, later in life, we tell ourselves we should’ve already “arrived.” That we should feel complete by now. So we panic when we don’t. We wonder what’s wrong with us. And that, my friend, is where suffering really starts.
Not in the lack itself. But in the guilt of not being “whole.”
There’s no cure for that guilt. How about we sit with the lack and say, “Okay. You’re here. I see you. Let’s live together.”
Is it easy? Not remotely. Good God, no.
When you go through therapy, it’s like walking through your own personal hell. But if you do the work, if you face the ghosts instead of painting over them, you get something better than false happiness.
You get freedom.
Freedom to stop pretending you’re fine.
Freedom to mourn what you never had.
Freedom to laugh, even when you’re not “healed.”
Freedom to love, even when your heart is a bit mangled.
Freedom to say, “I’m not complete. But I’m alive. And that’s more than enough.”
So what do you do with all this?
I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe you just sit quietly for a bit, with your cup of coffee going cold, and think about the piece you’re still looking for. Not to find it. Just to notice it. To say hello.
Or maybe you write. Or call someone you miss. Or play that half-forgotten song you used to love. Maybe you stop trying to be whole, and just start trying to be here.
And if you do, even for a second, that might be happiness.
Not the perfect, Instagrammable kind. But the real, messy, fleeting kind that shows up uninvited and leaves too soon.
Which is to say, the only kind there is.
Love,
Noemi
P.S.: If Gabriel Rolón’s book has caught your attention, you can find it here.
