i am never going to become the person i want to be

I live with the constant feeling that I am never going to become the person I want to be, that I will never manage to do what I set out to do. It is a persistent sensation, devastatingly real, that I drag along with every step I take. It drains my will, it drains my energy, it makes me fall behind.

And yet, here I am, hitting these stupid keys in a blank note I just opened because there is a small part of me telling me that these words—these exact ones I am writing now, and this one, and this one, and this one too—are going to change my life. Completely stupid, right? But there is something inside me that won't let me stop writing. There is a voice, very quiet but constant, telling me that the only thing I want to do is put one letter after another until I build something that makes sense.

I see all those people who get results and I feel stuck. I feel like I'm climbing up down-escalators. Maybe I'm not putting in enough effort. Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I don't want it enough. Maybe I'm already too late. Maybe I'm never going to be the chosen one, the person blessed by the magic wand of the algorithm.

I look at myself in the mirror and I wish I could reach through it with my hands and touch myself. To grab myself by the shoulders, gently at first, and then betray myself with my own arms and hurl myself beyond where I am able to exist. I would like to explode the stagnant energy I have inside to propel myself toward a place where I feel capable and light.

I hear the sound of the keys telling me keep going, keep going, keep going. I hear my head telling me stop, stop, stop. But here I remain, typing senselessly, louder and faster, louder and faster, because nothing has more power than writing against the current—despite the weight, despite the rejection, despite the fact that what weighs on me most is getting nowhere.

Where am I? Where have I ended up? Hello? Is anyone there?

- jú.