New Year's Eve. You write down what you'll be next year. Thinner. Calmer. More disciplined. The list feels like progress. You haven't done any of it yet. The list itself feels like progress. By March the list is in a drawer. By December you're writing a new one.
K identified this as the central illusion of psychological time. Tomorrow I will be better. The sentence sounds reasonable. Improvement. Growth. Working on yourself. K's claim is that the sentence is a maneuver, not a plan. It's the present escaping from itself by promising a future version of itself that will be acceptable.
The actual you, right now, isn't acceptable to you. So you construct a future you that will be acceptable. The construction is the becoming. The becoming is the avoidance. While you're becoming, you don't have to be. While you're working on the future self, the present self is suspended. Never quite real, because the real one is coming later.
There's a particular flavor to the becoming move. A relief. A sense of not-yet. You don't have to deal with the actual you right now, because the project is the better you who is on the way. Becoming is comfortable. Being is uncomfortable. The whole architecture exists to keep you in the comfortable mode.
Becoming is the present escaping from itself by promising to be a different present, later. The promise is the escape. The escape is what was supposed to be solved by the becoming. The becoming is the problem, dressed up as the solution.