Running on Empty: The Lie That Peace Is One More Step Away

Confession...

I’m still chasing accomplishment, approval, clarity, healing. Even now, while I’m typing this.

There’s this voice in my head that doesn’t quite quit: “Just one more insight… one more breakthrough… then you’ll make it.”

So no, this isn’t me on top of some peaceful inner mountain, giving a TED talk and handing out three easy steps to bliss. This is me mid-climb. Sweaty. Slipping. Wondering sometimes, "am I even on the right path".

But here is what i'm thinking: maybe the point isn’t to stop chasing altogether. Maybe it’s to figure out what we’re actually chasing, and why it always seems to stay just out of reach.

Chasing Shadow

Imagine this: you’re sprinting across an open field, chasing your shadow. Arms pumping. Heart pounding. Eyes locked. And yet, no matter how fast you run, you never close the gap.

That’s what it feels like to believe peace is always waiting on the other side of effort.

We tell ourselves:

• Once I get promoted…

• Once I finish this...

• Once I fix this relationship…

• Once I’m healed…

• Once I stop feeling broken…

Sometimes we catch up for a second. We feel the relief. But it doesn’t last. The shadow moves. The chase repeats.

Psychologists Brickman and Campbell called this the hedonic treadmill, our tendency to get used to the “new thing” and slide back to our emotional baseline. The job, the relationship, the spiritual high, they hit like a drug. Then the buzz fades, and we start hunting again.

The “next thing” isn’t always about growth. Sometimes it’s the distraction we use to avoid the ache we’ve never really faced.

Sometimes Suffering Makes the Chase Necessary

Let’s be real, sometimes life is just brutal.

And in those moments, telling someone to “just be content” isn’t wisdom. It’s negligence.

If you’re in survival mode dealing with things like abuse, grief, trauma, and addiction contentment isn’t just out of reach. It might be irrelevant.

You don’t need to be at peace.

You need to be safe.

You need to get out.

You need to heal.

Sometimes chasing your shadow is the only thing that keeps you breathing. Movement itself becomes mercy.

But here’s the thing, sometimes the ground you’re desperate to escape is the very soil where joy starts to grow.

Pain Can Hurt and Heal at the Same Time

There’s this idea in psychology called post-traumatic growth, the way some people come out of suffering not just marked, but clarified. More anchored. More awake to what actually matters.

It’s not because pain is good. Pain’s not some divine gym membership to build your soul. It’s because pain rips away the illusion of control. It burns off the false identities. It leaves you staring at the question: Am I going to keep pretending I can control this? Or am I finally going to surrender?

Viktor Frankl, who knew suffering beyond what most can imagine, put it like this:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

That kind of change can’t be manufactured. It doesn’t make you prettier. It makes you truer.

And sometimes, joy shows up there, not the clean, Instagram-ready kind, but the stubborn kind that blooms in the cracks of your old life.

C.S. Lewis called it:

“An unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”

It’s not the joy of arriving. It’s the ache that says, You were made for more.

And sometimes it’s the ache itself that opens the door.

What Contentment Actually Is (and Isn’t)

Let’s clear something up: contentment isn’t the enemy of change.

It’s not giving up.

It’s not playing dead.

It’s not faking peace while ignoring your pain.

Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan found that real well-being comes when three needs are met:

• Autonomy — living by your own values

• Competence — feeling capable and growing

• Relatedness — having meaningful connection

When those are in place, contentment isn’t something you force. It’s something that shows up naturally — even while life is still messy.

But Philosophy Knew This First

The Stoics said it long ago: it’s not what happens to us that causes suffering, it’s what we expect from life.

Epictetus wrote:

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

From a religous angle, C.S. Lewis warned about worshiping comfort or success. In The Problem of Pain, he called pain “God’s megaphone”, not because God enjoys watching us hurt, but because sometimes it’s the only thing loud enough to wake us up.

Even Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, two wildly different thinkers, agreed that you can’t skip the suffering if you want a life that matters.

Faith, philosophy, psychology: they all seem to be saying the same thing...

Contentment isn’t found in arrival. It’s found in surrender.

So What Do We Do?

If you’re in the fire, keep moving.

If you’re healing, give yourself grace.

If you’re still chasing your shadow, stop and ask:

Am I running toward something necessary… or just something familiar?

Because eventually, if you’re lucky, or just exhausted enough, you might stop grabbing at what was never meant to be caught.

And you turn toward the light that cast the shadow in the first place.

That’s where the stillness comes. Not resignation. Rest.

And you realize contentment was never far away, you were just running too fast to see it.

One Last Thing

I still do it. I still chase. I still have days where I think, "If I can just fix this one thing…"

but I know better, and like many of you I forget. A lot.

So this isn’t a formula. There’s no magic trick. It’s just an invitation to stop long enough to notice what’s already here.

Maybe you’ll see that even the parts of your life you wish you could erase have been shaping you. And in that space, you might find something closer to peace than all the running ever gave you.