You ever feel like life is moving too fast, but you’re stuck in slow motion?

Like you’re supposed to be somewhere by now—further ahead, more accomplished, less lost—but no matter how hard you push, you’re still here. In the same town.

The same routine. The same half-finished plans and almost-made decisions.

It’s like watching everyone else speed past you while you’re stranded on the side of the road with a busted engine.

I feel that. Every day.

And it’s not just about success—whatever that even means anymore. It’s about this pressure, this invisible countdown ticking away in the back of my mind, like I’m running out of time to figure it all out.

But what if that’s a lie?

What if this whole idea that we’re behind is just something we made up?

Because lately, I’ve been asking myself:

Who exactly am I racing?

And what happens if I just stop running?

The Illusion of “Being Behind”

Somewhere along the way, we were all fed the same timeline.

Graduate. Get a good job. Move out. Find someone. Build something. Have it all figured out before you’re 30.

And if you don’t? Well, congratulations. You’re officially failing at life.

At least, that’s what it feels like.

But here’s the thing—life doesn’t actually work on a schedule. There’s no cosmic deadline. No universal rule that says you have to have everything sorted out by a certain age.

I mean, look at the people we admire. The ones who actually made something of themselves. Most of them didn’t follow the script.

Some of them spent years broke and aimless before they found their thing. Some of them never found their thing at all but still built a life that mattered.

So why do we act like we’re losing if we’re not ahead?

Who decided that life is a race?

Because I don’t remember signing up for one.

The Dangerous Game of Comparing Timelines

I ran into an old friend the other day.

He’s got a house now. A wife. A career with an actual salary instead of a side hustle that barely pays for coffee. And for a second—just a second—I felt like shit.

Like maybe I’d wasted too much time. Like maybe I should’ve taken a different path. Like maybe this whole idea of “figuring it out on my own terms” was just an excuse for failure.

But then I remembered something:

His story isn’t mine.

And mine isn’t his.

We started in the same place, yeah. But we wanted different things. We lived different lives. We made different choices.

So why the hell was I comparing?

Because that’s the trap, isn’t it? You see someone else’s highlight reel and suddenly, your behind-the-scenes looks like a mess.

But you don’t know what it took for them to get there. You don’t know if they’re even happy.

Maybe he looks at me and feels jealous that I still have freedom. That I don’t have a mortgage hanging over my head.

That I can wake up tomorrow and decide to change everything if I want to.

Maybe he feels just as lost as I do.

The truth is, no one has it all figured out. Some people are just better at faking it.

The Fear of Wasting Time is What Actually Wastes It

You know what’s ironic?

I’ve spent so much time worrying about time.

I’ve sat around stressing over whether I’m too late, whether I missed my chance, whether I should’ve done things differently—when I could’ve just been living.

That’s the real time thief.

Not failure. Not bad decisions. Not even starting over.

Just hesitating.

Just wasting energy on “what if” instead of “what’s next.”

I don’t want to wake up ten years from now and realize I spent my whole life thinking about life instead of actually living it.

It’s Okay to Take the Scenic Route

Maybe you’re not behind.

Maybe you’re just on a different road.

Maybe while everyone else was sprinting ahead, you stopped to actually look around. To figure out what matters. To learn things the hard way.

Maybe that’s not failure.

Maybe that’s just life.

I mean, who said we all have to take the highway? What if some of us are meant to take the backroads—the long, winding way that doesn’t make sense to anyone else?

What if the detours, the mistakes, the slow progress—it’s all part of the story we were meant to tell?

And what if, years from now, we look back and realize we were never lost at all?

So What Now?

If you feel like you’re running out of time, hear me out:

You’re not.

You’re not too late.
You’re not too old.
You’re not too far behind.

You’re just where you are.

And that’s okay.

Because maybe the point isn’t to get somewhere as fast as possible.

Maybe the point is to actually live while you’re getting there.

So stop running. Stop comparing. Stop acting like life is some kind of competition.

Take your time.

Build something real.

And don’t let the fear of “falling behind” keep you from moving forward.

—J