We are all suffering from the same ailment.
None of us know where we are ultimately headed to. We form goals , we attain them , form new goals and the cycle goes on.I think it is a great thing though .

Woody Allen once remarked that he makes films for therapeutic reasons.

“My films are therapy for my debilitating depression.
In institutions people weave baskets. I make films.”
– Woody Allen.

So instead of being aimless , we strive to achieve something and that keeps us going. It prevents us from “ennui” – a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

So the trick is to keep yourself occupied and excited.

Next step is to be “happy” and “successful”.Both may or may not be interdependent but usually are.

Some say that being “happy” is not always an elated state but actually the opposite of “sad” . So “happy” is a sort of a comfortable understanding that you have made with your circumstances and therefore you are unbothered.
But we strive for the elated sense because that is where the fun lies.

Commonly , success leads to the elated sense of happiness.
A popular dilemma is whether “luck” exists or is it all hard work. No one knows but everyone has an opinion. The famous quote says “I’m a Great Believer in Luck. The Harder I Work, the More Luck I Have”.

Unless you are particularly unlucky , I think this principle works. The more you work hard , the more opportunities you pick up , your chances of succeeding automatically increase. It’s simple probability.

Now the situation arises when you do all of this , you work hard , you take all opportunities , you do your best and you don’t succeed. This is a rare thing and if it happens it’s alright because according to mathematical constructs , a rarity also has a probability of occurrence.

This holds true for both the serially successful people and serially unsuccessful people.

Hardwork is mandatory though.

In case you find yourself as a “serially unsuccessful person” , you shouldn’t give up.
If you give up working hard and maximizing opportunities then you are bound to fail as you are not doing the essential stuff.
I am not saying that one day you will succeed , you might never.

The essence is to keep working hard and maximizing your opportunities.

It is all a gamble , but it’s fine. The trick is to learn how to stack the odds in your favour.
And if that doesn’t happen , you could be pessimistic and detached from the goals.
That is fine too since the feeling of no control also leads to closure.

You may find my viewpoints highly self-contradictory. But that’s what there is to life.