Frozen in place

A lot of my experience is tinted by a feeling of pain and dissatisfaction with myself. I am running away from who I am now. Drawing peace from a future version of me. Always chasing the idea of being more. More successful, more attractive, more fit, more intelligent, more aware, more important. It works. It is potent enough to focus my energy towards these goals and hit them. It is so fused with my identity that it is difficult to imagine what it would be like to not be like this. But I have had a taste. Rest. With myself as I am. It is elusive. But when it comes, there is nothing to run away from. I can see clearly how much of my drive is constructed in pain. The pain of being left out, neglected, rejected, unwanted, wronged, seen as inferior. Instead of feeling these things through, I have them frozen in place and bypassed with goals to construct a reality where they will not exist. I fear without this I would not move. That I would lose my ground. And yet I risk living a life that is not mine.