There is much evidence on several levels that there are at least two major tasks to human life. The first task is to build a strong “container” or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold. The first task we take for granted as the very purpose of life, which does not mean that we do it well. The second task is encountered more than sought; few arrive at it with much preplanning, purpose or passion. We are a”first-half-of-life-culture”, largely concerned with surviving successfully. We all try to do what seems like the task that life first hands to us: establishing an identity, a home, relationships, a family, community, security and building a proper platform for our only life. But it takes us much longer to discover “the task within the task” as I like to call it: what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward.
The arrogant mind never stops searching for identity, and this identity always defines itself through attributes: “the beautiful one,” “the smart one,” “the creative one,” “the successful one.” We can hold on to these labels on a “good” day. But when we feel insecure about our attributes, or our lack thereof, we start to wonder how to define ourselves; we wonder who it is we really are. Regardless of whether we’re having a good day or a low-self-esteem day, the points is, we haven’t found a way to relax, to be natural, to be unself-conscious. We don’t know how to take our seat in ordinariness and feel comfortable in our own skin. We are always searching for something to be. It’s like having an ongoing identity crisis.
Emotional turmoil begins with an initial perception — a sight, sound, thought — which gives rise to a feeling of comfort or discomfort. This is the subtlest stage of getting hooked. Energetically there is a perceptible pull; it’s like wanting to scratch an itch. We don’t have to be advanced meditators to catch this. 
Mindfulbalance 