I Still Feel Like I Need Permission to Want More

Dear Delyara, I have ideas. Ambition. The desire for a different kind of work, a fuller kind of life, a version of myself that is not mostly administrative and emotionally useful. But every time I get close to naming what I want, some old internal authority figure shows up asking for credentials. Who do you think you are? Why now? Why you? What if you fail? What if you embarrass yourself? What if wanting more from your life at this stage is just a prettier form of ingratitude? I know those voices are old. They still sound official. So I keep waiting to feel authorized. No one is coming to authorize me. I know that too. I still wait.