# Becoming who you want to be > The Harvard psychologist, Dan Gilbert – whose book, "Stumbling Unhappiness," bye the way, should be required reading for every human being – he puts it perfectly. He says, "Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished." And I think that's so true. But there's a fine line between contentment and self-satisfaction and I think the key is to be content with who you are and where you are at any given moment – because living with presence both requires and gives rise to such contentment – but not to be so self-satisfied as to assume that you've reached perfection or who you're supposed to be and to cut yourself off from that vital impulse for continual growth. > > So, back to question, I don't think I've become who I want to be and I have become who I want to be in this moment but not in an ultimate sense. And what's stopping me from becoming who I want to be? Well, in a way, what I do is all about stopping myself from the illusion of having arrived – of having become a static and selfsatisfied final self. So the thing stopping me, then, is the very thing that's driving me forward. And I think that's true of all of us if we're serious about personal growth and this lifelong process of becoming. --- Date: 20220627 Links to: [[Life Philosophy MOC]] Tags: #review References: * [https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/92-maria-popova.pdf](https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/92-maria-popova.pdf)