There is an old saying , attachment is the core of all evil. If you are expecting the world to work in a certain way and rewards you for what you are doing, there is a in build flaw in this logic. Karam kar fal ki iccha mat kar. Do your job and don't worry for the reward. This you could also understand from the fact that is your art is for art sake or for the sake of some reward. If you are a painter the maximum satisfaction you should get from painting something doesn't matter how good or bad it is not what oneself or other thinks about it. If our attitude is for some kind of expectations from the world that's when we fail before beginning itself.

Read Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle - sounds like a self help book but I believe there are certain deep questions regarding our identity and meaning of life that each one of us is going though and there is no place to discuss this, if not for a therapist. Alain de botton in his The school of life says that books were meant to be the place where the culture of self discovery was promoted. So use that to your purpose. May the force be with you.