If You Feel Like You’re Behind in Life, Read This

Sometimes in life, a certain kind of anxiety creeps in when you’re scrolling late at night, which is why we’ve been doing it less and less lately in an attempt to go analog as much as we can this year.

You see people moving faster. They have bigger careers and move to new cities and always share big announcements. Their milestones are stacked neatly in the “right” order. And suddenly, without meaning to, you start feeling behind in life.

I’ve felt it too.

Not because my life is bad or because I’m unhappy, but because comparison has a way of convincing us that speed equals success and visibility equals progress.

The pressure of the timeline

Most of us are carrying around an invisible checklist of where we thought we’d be by now.

By this age, I thought I’d have figured it out!
By this stage, I thought things would feel clearer!
By now, I thought I’d feel more… settled.

That’s life timeline anxiety, and it’s fueled almost entirely by comparing yourself to others. The problem is, we’re comparing our behind-the-scenes to someone else’s highlight reel and calling it evidence. That’s not real life because we’re not getting the entire story.

Staying can feel like falling behind

There’s a narrative that growth only happens when you leave. We know this better than anyone.

Leave your hometown.
Leave what’s familiar.
Leave the life you started.

So when you stay, especially in the place you grew up in, it can feel like you’ve stalled out. Like everyone else is moving forward while you’re standing still. But staying isn’t necessarily the absence of courage. Sometimes it’s the practice of it. Building a life where you are is not the same thing as settling.

The myth of “too late”

One of the things that helps me when I start feeling behind in life is remembering how unreliable timelines actually are.

Martha Stewart didn’t start her television show until she was 50. Vera Wang was in her 40s before she designed her first wedding dress.

We rarely talk about this part. We talk about success as if it arrives on schedule, as if everyone who’s doing well simply followed the right steps at the right time, but real lives don’t unfold that neatly. The most meaningful work, the most fulfilling chapters, and the most confident versions of ourselves arrive after detours, pauses, and long stretches of building something important (but most people don’t ever see that part).

What I’ve learned about building slowly

Raising kids in the same town I grew up in has taught me that slow doesn’t necessarily mean stagnant, but it does mean layered.

It means relationships that deepen instead of reset and it means history. Familiar roads. Shared references. A sense of belonging that doesn’t need to be explained.

When you’re building something slowly, it can be harder to see your progress because it doesn’t come with flashy markers. There are fewer announcements. Fewer before-and-after moments.

But there is growth. It just might be a little harder to see.

Comparison flattens real life

Comparing yourself to others has a way of erasing context.

You don’t see the support systems. The shortcuts. The trade-offs. The things they gave up to get where they are. You just see the outcome and assume you missed a step. I’ve had to remind myself that there are a hundred different ways to build a good life and most of them don’t look impressive online.

Rooted doesn’t mean stuck

For a long time, I worried that being rooted meant I wasn’t evolving. But roots don’t prevent growth, they actually make it possible! Roots allow you to build upward without toppling over. They give you stability when things get uncertain. They let you grow in directions that aren’t obvious at first glance. Staying, choosing depth over speed, choosing consistency over constant reinvention, I wouldn’t call that being behind in life.

I would call that choosing a different pace.

Redefining what “ahead” even means

If “ahead” means constantly chasing the next thing, I don’t want it. I want a life that feels full, not rushed. Connected, not impressive. Sustainable, not performative. Maybe being ahead isn’t about hitting milestones first. Maybe it’s about feeling present where you are.

Maybe success isn’t measured in movement, but in meaning.

If you’re feeling behind, consider this

If you’re feeling behind in life right now, it doesn’t mean you missed your moment. It might mean you’re building something that takes time. It might mean you’re choosing roots over speed. Depth over optics. A life that holds you instead of one that constantly asks you to prove yourself.

And that isn’t failure.

That’s a different kind of success, one that often makes sense only in hindsight.