There were people we once never got tired of watching or spending time with. People whose age we couldn’t wait to reach, whose appearance we longed to resemble. Maybe it was a relative, a teacher, or an actor. Now, when we look at the age we’ve reached, we can’t help but wonder: Have we become those people we once admired for their simplicity and quiet presence? Have we ever truly felt like them?
Or have we never stopped wanting to become them?
Let’s pause for just a few seconds and think about what we have right now. Let’s remember the dreams we had about ourselves, the people we looked up to while growing up, and how incredibly big they seemed in our eyes.
Now, when we reflect, what made those people from our childhood different from us? Was there really a difference?
There was something in them we couldn’t quite define back then — a calmness, a quiet acceptance of life.
In time, I realized their “perfection” came from embracing their imperfections.
Perhaps that’s why, even as we grow older, the person we want to become always stays a few steps ahead.
The times we live in don’t allow us the space to accept our flaws. We don’t even get the chance to live with them.
We’re in too much of a rush to come to terms with ourselves.
Behind all these thoughts lie the systems of thinking that have shaped our minds since we first began to exist. The psychological theories that try to explain human behavior also illuminate the background of the emotions we experience in daily life.
For instance, Locke says human motivation increases with clear and challenging goals. Bandura emphasizes the connection between self-efficacy — the belief in one’s ability to perform a behavior — and actual behavior.
Maybe that’s why our minds have been filled with goals since childhood. That’s when we first meet the question: “What will you be when you grow up?” And without even realizing it, we begin to follow the path that question implies.
This feeling of “being there” becomes a never-ending pursuit.
A person can never fulfill all their desires — and even if they do, they can’t seem to be satisfied — because the mind is always drawing a new goal ahead.
That’s where Carl Rogers steps in. According to Rogers, our personality is made up of two different selves: the ideal self and the real self.
The ideal self is the answer to the question “Who should I be?” while the real self is everything we truly feel and believe.
The more distance between these two selves, the more we feel dragged down — lost in the gap between who we are and who we think we should be.
These theories don’t just live in books — they whisper to us from within our daily lives.
Sometimes in a store window, sometimes in a song we hear, sometimes in the photograph of a familiar face.
The person we should be and the person we are try to meet somewhere in the middle of our memories — but they never fully align.
And in those moments, we feel an inexplicable discomfort.
We remember those we once admired, hoping to find that calm they seemed to carry — but our minds urge us to hurry.
One desire replaces another, because modern life constantly pushes us to stay in motion — even in our thoughts.
When you turn inward, what do you feel?
Are we in the graceful ease of those people we once admired?
Or are we still trying to catch up, still trying to become someone else?
What I’ve come to realize is this:
Those people only seemed flawless to me because they had surrendered to the rhythm of life.
They didn’t question everything like we do — they accepted more, and found meaning in the quiet moments.
Even now, I don’t think I’ve found what they had.
But over time, I’ve come to understand something:
They appeared so great in my eyes not because they were more valuable people — but because I was in a time of life when I questioned less and felt more.
To feel that again, aging isn’t enough.
I need to pause — in the very middle of life — and rediscover myself.
And maybe that’s why the person we long to become always stays a few steps ahead.
Because it was never really about becoming them.
Each time we get closer to ourselves, we resemble them a little more — and stray a little further from the selves we once thought we needed to be.
References
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Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W.H. Freeman.
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Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717.
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Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy.