Clarity of purpose? Or something else?

Check marks on a list give me unreasonable levels of satisfaction. I can't help but think that I read so I can make lists of books that I should read. Every book that I finish gets a check mark. I love how the Audible apps lists books as finished. As a lonely teenager in a windy New Mexico military outpost, I had a list of Nintendo games that I had beaten. I wasn't a fan of sports games because there wasn't really a way to beat them. There was no final boss to defeat. Just beating the computer didn't have that thrill of accomplishment. There is a clarity of purpose in those games. The target is clear. The rules are clear. You just have to figure out how to make it through all the challenges. 

The sense of listlessness that I've been feeling may simply be the lack of clarity of purpose. What I am trying to do? I'm going in a direction towards a vague goal off in the distance, but it's too far to really be very motivating. I've felt this way before. Hell, I wrote about feeling this way last year. This is when I do things like look for another job, decide to apply to another graduate school, or develop some complex and utterly useless personal challenge. All of those tasks have an unambiguous goal and a clear path. You can see your progress and you know when you've succeeded. 

I don't really know what I want to accomplish professionally. I have never thought to give myself goals as a parent or as a husband. I'm not sure a simple goal will cut it these days. It's more about finding what makes me happy. I don't know what that is. Maybe that's what's missing.