I am most alive when I am forcing myself to do the very things parts of me would rather reject: reading difficult books, writing at a fixed time, keeping to a routine. These things are annoying as hell, even for me, disciplined as I dare to be. Yet they are also the moments in which I feel myself changing. It is as though every act of becoming takes a small piece from the person I used to be and hands it over to the person I am daring to be. The process is uncomfortable, often exhausting, yet profoundly satisfying.