There Is No Such Thing as Behind Because Timing is Divine?

How did we all agree to treat life like a race when half of us don’t even want the same prize?

It got me thinking...

It was one of those casually offensive scrolling moments. Someone my age had just announced a baby, a promotion, a house, and what appeared to be stable serotonin. Another had launched a business, frozen her eggs, and gone to Tulum to “realign.” Meanwhile, I was doing that deeply human thing of mistaking someone else’s timing for evidence about my own.

Maybe there is no such thing as behind. Maybe there is only timing. And maybe timing, inconveniently, has no interest in our little panic spreadsheets.

We love the idea that life should happen in a clean, flattering order. Career. Relationship. Financial stability. Glowing skin. Emotional maturity. Maybe a pantry that suggests you have your life together. But life rarely unfolds like that. It’s messier. Less linear. Far more committed to humbling us than coordinating with our imagined deadlines.

And yet, so many of us walk around with the sneaking suspicion that we should be further along. Further in love. Further in healing. Further in our career. Further in knowing what the hell we’re doing. As if there’s a correct pace for becoming a person. As if the universe sent out a master timeline and we somehow missed the attachment.

Take my client Maya. Maya was 38, newly single, and changing careers, which in her mind meant she was failing at adulthood in at least three categories. Around her, friends were buying homes, having babies, and posting anniversary captions so sincere they should have required editorial review. Maya kept saying, “I thought I’d be somewhere else by now.”

Of course she did. We all do. Nothing fuels existential nausea quite like comparing your real life to the imaginary one you built at 24 with no frontal lobe and a dream.

But Maya wasn’t behind. She was in transition. And transition only feels like failure when you keep measuring it against a version of life that no longer fits.

Then there was Daniel, who spent years convinced love had skipped him entirely. Everyone around him seemed partnered, married, or at the very least consistently texted back. He, meanwhile, had collected enough “bad texters” to qualify for a research grant. But when he finally met someone healthy, he said, “If I had met her five years ago, I would have ruined this.”

Annoying. But important.

Because timing is not just about when something arrives. It’s also about who you are when it does.

That’s the part we forget. We think we want the thing now. The relationship, the opportunity, the clarity, the next chapter. But sometimes earlier wouldn’t have been better. Sometimes earlier would have been chaos with better lighting. Sometimes what feels like delay is actually the slow, unsexy process of becoming someone who can hold what they’re asking for.

It’s like wanting a beautiful houseplant while being, at present, emotionally a person who forgets water exists.

And yes, the science supports this, which is irritating. Human development is nonlinear. Emotional readiness does not move according to birthdays, engagement seasons, or LinkedIn announcements. People grow at different rates because they are living different lives, carrying different wounds, and learning different lessons. Two people can be the same age and in completely different seasons. That’s not failure. That’s reality.

The suffering usually comes when we turn timing into a moral issue. We don’t just think, it hasn’t happened yet. We think, it hasn’t happened yet because something is wrong with me. We make delay mean unworthy. Unchosen. Unsuccessful. As if a pause is the same thing as a dead end.

What if this season isn’t proof that your life is off track? What if it’s preparation? What if the thing you want is taking longer because you are still becoming the version of yourself who can receive it without fumbling it, forcing it, or mistaking it for something else?

Most things arrive differently once you’re ready. The right relationship feels less like fireworks and more like nervous system relief. The right opportunity often shows up after the wrong one has stopped dazzling you. The right timing usually looks suspiciously like a delay until one day it suddenly looks like wisdom.

So no, I don’t think there is such a thing as behind.

I think there is your life, unfolding in its own strange, inefficient, often deeply unphotogenic way.

And maybe peace begins when you stop asking why your timeline doesn’t look like everyone else’s and start asking whether it actually needs to.

Because half the people you envy are probably exhausted, confused, or quietly living inside decisions they made just to feel “on time.”

So if you feel behind, here’s the good news: you’re probably not behind. You’re probably just in a chapter that doesn’t photograph well.

And unfortunately, some of the most divine timing looks exactly like that.

Coco x