No more “when is my turn?” question for me.

The Arithmetic of Comparison

I have been doing math with time since I was eighteen.
Comparing myself to people ten years older, as if life were a scoreboard I needed to catch up to. I looked at those who had careers, houses, and families, and convinced myself I was late.

It has been fourteen years since then, and I still find myself making the same mistake. At thirty-two, I still measure where I am against people who have simply lived longer.

But the equation never adds up.
Because it was never meant to.

We mistake progress for pace. We think we’re behind when we’re just on a different rhythm.

We grow up believing life follows a pattern that only involves study, work, succeed, settle. There’s a timeline we quietly inherit, one that defines what “on time” means. So when our rhythm bends or slows, we panic. We think we’ve fallen behind.
But we haven’t. We’re just moving differently.

The Rush to Arrive

When you compare yourself to people a decade older, you forget that time compounds differently. They’ve had more tries, more failures, more recalculations.

No, you are not behind them. You’re simply not in the same equation.

We treat time like currency. We treat it as something to be spent quickly before it loses value. We rush growth because we fear being the last to arrive. But speed is not proof of success. A rushed story may look impressive, but it often collapses inside.

I used to think that if I could get there sooner, I would finally feel safe. I thought that by thirty, I should already have everything figured out.

Now I realize that wanting things earlier often comes from fear, not readiness. Life doesn’t reward the rushed. It reveals the ready.

The right things take time not because they’re being withheld, but because we’re still learning how to carry them without breaking.

The job, the partner, the peace. They are not late.
They are waiting for you to be aligned enough to sustain them.

The Rewrite of Time

It’s easy to think you’re waiting for the world to give you your turn. But maybe the world is waiting for you to stop rushing toward someone else’s version of success.

I’m learning to see waiting not as punishment, but as preparation.
The pause between what I expect and what is unfolding is not empty space. It’s where refinement happens. It’s where perspective, discipline, and depth are built quietly, away from the public timeline.

When you stop counting how far ahead or behind you are, something softens.

The noise fades. You realize that most people are not running faster, they’re just narrating louder. And when you stop competing with other timelines, you can finally hear your own.

Maybe the real question isn’t “When is my turn?” but “What is this time asking me to learn?”

The truth is, you are already in motion.
You have been all along.

I used to believe life was a series of arrivals.
Now I see it as a long conversation with time.
Sometimes it speaks in delay. Sometimes it speaks in detours.
But it always speaks in rhythm.

The Becoming

So I won’t play math with time anymore.
I won’t rush to arrive, or measure worth by pace.
I’ll build at the speed that feels real.

Because the moment I’m in isn’t a waiting room. It’s part of the story.