Most artists think their stress comes from a lack of discipline or confidence. It doesn’t. It comes from uncertainty.

From the sentence people repeat like a confession: I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. That sentence sounds honest, but it smuggles in a lie. That you were supposed to know. That certainty is normal. That not knowing means you’re late, behind, or broken. That idea was installed early, reinforced by school, amplified by social media, and rewarded by industries that benefit when you commit too soon and stay put.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. No one knows what they’re doing with their life in the full sense. You can know what you’re doing this month. You can know what you’re building next. You can know what skill you’re sharpening right now. That kind of local certainty is real and useful. Life-wide certainty is fiction. Pretending you have it doesn’t make you responsible or ambitious. It replaces attention with performance. You start following a script instead of noticing when something pulls at you, again and again, even when no one is watching.

You owe nothing to your younger self’s plans. You do not owe completion to a dream you no longer want. What you owe is honesty. If you don’t have the things you once thought you wanted, it isn’t always because you failed. Often it’s because you stopped orienting your life toward them. Orientation matters more than outcome. Access matters. Timing matters. Luck, visas, gatekeepers all exist. Desire alone does not guarantee results. But real desire leaves evidence. It changes what you read, what you practice, what you return to when no one is forcing you.

Most people who say they’re lost are in a specific limbo. They’ve outgrown an old want, but they haven’t given themselves permission to want something new. So they cling to the idea of “figuring it out” because certainty feels calming. Certainty removes responsibility. If the path is already decided, you don’t have to choose. Hunger disappears. So does growth.

Hunger is not a flaw. In craft, fulfillment is often the start of decay. The moment you protect identity instead of skill, learning slows. Curiosity shrinks. Shots get safer. Questions get quieter. That doesn’t mean you should live in chaos. Direction matters. Commitment matters. But direction is not destiny, and titles are not arrival.

So stop asking what you’re doing with your life. Ask smaller, sharper questions. What am I doing today. Who do I love. What keeps resurfacing even when I try to ignore it. What do I want now that tomorrow-me will thank me for. Ask that daily. Patterns don’t lie. Over time, they don’t just suggest a life. They corner you into one that’s honest, whether you planned it or not.