We are constantly waiting for something.
When I lose weight, I'll feel better. When I make more money, I'll relax. When I find someone, I'll be happy. When I move somewhere better, I'll finally feel settled. When I retire, I'll have time.
The finish line keeps moving.
And this is one of the great tricks our minds play on us. We imagine that our future self will finally arrive at some perfect place where everything makes sense.
But the future version of you will still be you. Same brain. New problems.
You solve one problem and another appears. You make money and then worry about keeping it. You find someone and then discover relationships require work. You achieve a goal and immediately create another one.
This doesn't mean goals are pointless. Quite the opposite. Goals give direction. But if you make happiness conditional on reaching them, you are basically negotiating with a future that doesn't exist yet.
There is no magical version of life where everything is finally finished. There is only the current version.
Maybe the trick is to stop treating the present as a waiting room.
Life isn't what happens after everything is sorted out. This is it. Messy, unfinished, occasionally ridiculous. And probably much more interesting because of it.