The quest for fulfillment is basic to our nature, but you might ask how does it manifest? I think of fulfillment as an appetite. An appetite is an inner need we need to fill. The search for fulfillment is behind much of our consuming behavior, from food and alcohol and other substances to new experiences, knowledge, enlightenment and so forth. Think about it seriously. Why do we seek to acquire or consume all this? Why are we not just content to be? It is because we have a need inside of us to be fulfilled.
Saint Augustine saw that ultimately it was the need to be fulfilled by God that was behind our primal need to search for fulfillment. His famous axiom, Thou hast made us for thyself O Lord and our hearts are restless until we rest in thee, is an important bit of theological wisdom.
As we approach the end of physical life it is important that we feel fulfilled by the life we have lived. There has to be within us something that says what we have lived is good and enough, what we have lived is meaningful and satisfying. Else-wise we suffer what is called existential distress; because we are not fulfilled by life and think we need to seek more to fill our appetite for fulfillment. Or we grow angry over the life lived and and descend to despair and sorrow. So the question facing each and every one of us as we look at death is, Where do we find fulfillment in life?
It is such a simple question but how you answer can have a great effect on whether you die in peace or not. Augustine believed that the fullest source of fulfillment for us has to be found in God. Do you believe God is the source of your fulfillment? Well and good. I commend you but would add a cautionary note; you must believe thoroughly, and by this I mean that our fulfillment from God must not be found in what God provides nor even the conditions under which you live your life but in God alone; for God alone and not what He does or gives, is unimpeachable, without conditions, and entirely free from disappointment. No conditions attached. If you believe that then well done and good.
Setting God aside for a moment, how do you get a sense of fulfillment from your life? You can of course answer that question anyway you want to, but I have a caution for you to consider. It is that we live in a culture that inculcates us with thinking that is not conducive to fulfillment. How so? It is so because we live in a society that encourages us to source fulfillment in consumption. If we just consume this next meal, this next drink, this next hit, this next experience, this next feeling, this bit of knowledge, this new way, this new fact and so forth and on and on, then we will be fulfilled. And all of it promises to be the be all and end all when it comes to inner peace and satisfaction and so forth, but none of it is because we are conditioned to be on to the new and best thing. Sad to say our culture has taught us to ever seek but has not taught us to rest in the sources of our fulfillment.
A lot of people use the so-called Bucket List. The idea is that you lay down what you really want to do in life and go about accomplishing those items. I really like this because it helps us quantify and measure what we need to be fulfilled and rescues us from drifting in a never-ending sea of potential things to do. It is good provided you do not have a hole in your bucket. A hole in the bucket is that culturally conditioned need to consume. So even if you do accomplish all of your bucket list but still feel you need to do more you have effectively wasted your efforts. What you really need to do is find a place in your worldview where enough is enough and more is not enough. You need to plug those holes, come up with a philosophy of life that makes you satisfied in what you have done and who you are and not in what you must needs do next or become. Of course the specifics are entirely up to you, but I have few ideas for you to consider.
Firstly, learn the essential truth that what you have done then is what you have done now. Your past is just as much a part of you as your present is. This is not resting on your laurels, but is to recognize that your laurels are a valid source of fulfillment. Secondly, you need to realize that your sense of being fulfilled is largely conditioned by perspective and how you perceive your life will determine whether or not you feel fulfilled. Thus, if you feel you forever need more you will never find fulfillment except the fleeting sort that comes on strongly and quickly vanishes with the times. But if you feel that what is once done is applicable to your being even years later you will be inclined to access that sense of fulfillment. Thirdly, you ought cultivate the fact that remembering is a powerful tool. Fourth, you ought cultivate simplicity.
My father had an idea of fulfillment that basically was you enjoy life and when you have to die oh well you have to die. He had a practical sense of life in which he took what happened to him and did not ask for much more; perhaps because of the Great Depression he went through in the 1930s. We rather have multiplied our needs and in doing so have complicated and made more difficult a sense of life fulfillment.
I would suggest that we can be fulfilled with what is given to us at any moment of time no matter what it is. Every moment has the possibility of absolute fulfillment. A vision of beauty in a flower affords as much fulfillment as climbing Mount Everest, a fresh breeze can quench the thirsting soul greater than the acquisition of all the wealth in the world, a sudden realization of life can fill the spirit with more light than ever imagined. Stillness is the key to true spiritual fulfillment just as noise and busyness and searching for endless new things are the destroyers of it.
I would also suggest that true fulfillment has already been given to each of us. Do we really need to do anything to be fulfilled or is that a cultural expectation ingrained in us? Yet each of us is a child of God, created in the image of God. Does it get any better than that? All else, all other standards of fulfillment are add-ons to this basic and unimpeachable worth and fulfillment that is ours simply because we are life and alive. Can you accept this? If you can then go further; for all of the reasons we are not happy and fulfilled are our own making, a result of our expectations or choices. What we essentially need, fullness of meaning and beings, has already been given to us. The task is no longer one of gaining fulfillment, nor has it ever been, but of realizing it within yourself and the experience of the world given to you.