For those who feel like falling behind and still finding themselves…

I know how it feels to watch everyone else moving forward while you’re stuck in the same place. One friend is getting engaged, another is getting married, someone’s expecting a kid, someone else just bought a house, and another is heading abroad. The rest have faded away, busy with their relationships, their parents, their careers, their own struggles. I get it…it’s natural. But it still feels foreign. It’s like they’re rewriting themselves into people I barely recognize while I’m here, tangled in old habits, watching from the sidelines.

Sometimes I think, “Maybe I should just catch up.” I live in India, after all. If I told my mom, “Find me a girl to marry,” it would happen. There’d be a wedding, a house, kids. I’d have my checkboxes ticked off, a shared direction in life with my friends. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so out of place. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so lonely.

But is that what I want?

Truthfully, I don’t even know who I am yet. I don’t know what kind of life I want, what’s possible for me, or what isn’t. I haven’t made sense of the mistakes I’ve made, let alone learned from them. And if I’m being honest, I can’t say I love my life right now. My job doesn’t excite me. I don’t have work I can point to and say, “This is mine.” I don’t have a relationship that makes me feel warm or understood (probably because I don’t even want one right now). My friends are too busy to just hang out, and I don’t have much money to fall back on. So, I’ve stopped reaching out to people because I’m not even sure what I’d say.

Most days, I just fill my time with small things that bring fleeting joy. But once those moments pass, I’m left with this thought: On one hand, I need to figure myself out…my identity, relationships, finances. On the other hand, I need people to share this journey with, people who make it feel less heavy and more belonged. And all the while, time doesn’t wait. I’m not getting younger, and it feels like everyone around me has figured it out or settled into a life they’re content with.

That realization is suffocating. It feels like a weight pressing down, a constant reminder that time is slipping away. But I’ve started to believe it’s not my fault. Figuring out who you are is a deeply personal journey, and it takes time, a lot of time! and an uncomfortable amount of honesty, with yourself and with others. It’s not something you can rush, no matter how much you wish you could, and it’s definitely not something you can abandon halfway through, even when it feels overwhelming. You have to see it through, no matter how lonely, uncertain, or exhausting it gets, because it’s the only way to truly understand yourself and what you want from life.

Maybe that’s the real lesson here. Life isn’t about ticking off milestones or matching someone else’s pace. It’s about the process. Getting a “perfect” wife isn’t the goal; building meaningful relationships is. Buying a house isn’t the goal; creating a home is. Making money isn’t the goal; building wealth, true, sustainable wealth, is. And yes, making love might be a goal (okay, it is), but forming love, the kind that stays, is what actually matters. All of this takes time, and maybe it’s time I stop comparing my life to others and letting that comparison isolate me.

I wish I were on the same page as my friends, but maybe if I’d always been like them, we wouldn’t have connected in the first place(?). Maybe my path is meant to be different.

So, if you feel like you’re falling behind, maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re on a path that’s meant to challenge you, to break you down in ways that rebuild you into someone stronger, someone who truly understands themselves. It’s hard to feel out of sync with the world, to watch others move forward while you’re stuck questioning everything. But that questioning isn’t a flaw…it’s a sign of depth, of wanting more than just the surface-level milestones. Maybe your journey isn’t about catching up; it’s about creating something entirely your own, something meaningful. And maybe, just maybe, when you reach the place you’re meant to be, it won’t matter how long it took or how different it looks from everyone else’s. What will matter is that it’s yours, and in that moment, you’ll realize it was worth every twist, every delay, and every doubt along the way. Or at least let’s hope for that…

Take care,

Fellow traveler 🙂