Have you ever felt like everyone else got a memo you never received? Some secret checklist for what “adulting” is supposed to look like — and somehow, you’re the only one who missed it?
I felt that way for a long time. Honestly, I still do sometimes. So if you’ve been scrolling through your phone, watching everyone else’s highlight reel, and quietly asking yourself did I miss my turn? Am I falling behind? — welcome. You’re in the right place. This is a real pain point for so many of us, and I want to sit with you in it today.
“Where Do You See Yourself”
A few years ago — pre-Corona, because everything in my life is now measured as either BC or AC, before Corona and after — I was at a dinner party when someone asked me, “So, where do you see yourself in five years?”
I froze.
At the time, there was a lot going on, personally and professionally. I was weighing some big moves, wrapping up projects, and if I’m honest, I was just trying to make it to the end of the week. No one knew that. Not my collaborators, not the people closest to me. I was carrying it quietly, working through it entirely inside my own head.
That question landed like a punch in the gut. I looked around the table and everyone seemed so clear, so settled, so far ahead. And I felt like I was running a race I never signed up for — until that question arrived and put me in it.
Does any of this sound familiar?
The Timelines Are Fake
Here’s what I’ve come to understand, and what I want you to sit with today: almost none of the timelines we measure ourselves against are real. They’re not laws of nature. They’re not written anywhere but in our own heads.
You should have a certain career by a certain age. You should be married by a certain time. Kids, a house, a title, a savings account that looks a certain way by a certain birthday.
None of that is a rule. It’s a story we were handed, and at some point we agreed to believe it.
I grew up straddling this beautifully strange duality. My cultural background — the East Indian culture I come from — is rich. It’s deep, mystic, layered with philosophy and spirituality and a real understanding of life’s bigger questions. And yet, right alongside that depth, there’s this other current: an intense preoccupation with what the neighbors are doing. Did they go to the Ivy League school? Are they a doctor, an engineer? Do they have the white picket fence, the timeline, the checklist, all checked off?
If you’re not living according to that checklist, you will be made to feel it — sometimes without anyone intending to make you feel that way at all.
Being the Black Sheep
I used to dread family gatherings. I’ve always known I was something of the black sheep — the one who did things differently, who kept things close, who didn’t explain herself. And a lot of that silence came from feeling judged. Deeply judged.
Strangers judging you is one kind of hurt. Family judging you cuts differently. It’s harder to shake, because you know they’ll smile at you to your face and tell you they accept you — and then, behind your back, wonder aloud what’s wrong with you. Why isn’t she doing it the normal way?
It shapes you, whether you want it to or not.
What Actually Changed Things
The best parts of my life started the moment I stopped believing that old script — the one that wasn’t even mine to begin with.
I moved to a different country on a whim once. Genuinely, on a whim — the whole decision unfolded over about nine months. I switched careers when it didn’t make sense to anyone watching. And every time, someone had an opinion: You should pack it in. You should move back. You should settle down. You should be doing this by now.
But the moment I chose for myself, over what everyone expected of me — that’s when I actually started living. That’s when I started becoming myself. And the people who matter most to me weren’t the ones with the opinions. They were the ones who stayed, fully behind me, without needing me to explain.
What If You’re Not Actually Behind?
So here’s what I want to challenge you with today — and I’m challenging myself right along with you: what if you’re not behind at all? What if you’re exactly where you need to be?
I believe that, genuinely. I believe we arrive where we need to arrive, when we need to arrive there, in the way we need to get there — even when we can’t see the reason yet.
It’s human to compare.
It’s normal to feel like everyone else is moving faster, building something more solid, further along in some race you didn’t realize you’d entered. But here’s what’s actually healthy: letting someone else’s timeline be theirs, without letting it put a single crack in your own story.
Half the people who look like they have it all together don’t. They’re just better at hiding the mess — tucking it away like that one messy kitchen drawer every household seems to have, the one where all the loose ends go so the rest of the house looks tidy. We all have that drawer. We’re all human.
Your Permission Slip
If you’ve been feeling like you’re falling behind, consider this your permission slip to stop running a race that was never yours to run.
The next time that little voice whispers you’re behind, ask it back: Behind who? For what? According to whose rules?
If the answer doesn’t come from your own heart, it’s probably not worth carrying.
Your life isn’t a competition. It’s a story — a beautiful one, and you’re the one holding the pen. You are not late. You are not behind. You are right on time for the story only you can write.
