I mostly agree with what you have to you say. Clearly you have been through this and have gained a lot of wisdom along the way. We are all products of our environments and our goals arise from this. People who grow up in the Bay Area, or who read Hacker News, or who excel at STEM have "life goals" of running a startup. Some actually want that internally and others are just going through the motions. The latter will be miserable. It's also not something you can tough out and force on yourself. Either you want it or you don't, and that's a good thing! We are individuals after all.

Where I disagree is that depression is caused by us being misaligned internally. Anybody who has been there knows that the brain can hijack your perception of the world. When you are depressed everything sucks. We live in an unexplainable universe with billions of assholes and we are all going to die so what's the point of anything? Nihilism takes over. You get more depressed. But once the fog lifts you can find the joy in life and appreciate all the stuff your "rational" depressed self thought was pointless.

From my experience I think its best to not make these grand sweeping life goals in the first place. Take it day by and keep moving forward. What excites you today? What do you daydream about when you are in the shower? People who achieve these "great goals" do so via naturally gained momentum and almost nobody has a life goal that lasts for decades. You start with something, see if you like it, if you do keep that momentum rolling. It should be more natural, feel good, and not be contrived. Be easy on yourself and enjoy the ride. You don't have to be Steve Jobs and even he wasn't trying to be Steve Jobs. He just got the momentum going and kept with it. If it happens so be it but if you are miserable you are doing it wrong.