A lot of people have this feeling that they are behind in life. However, the thing is
that you don’t really get this feeling until you are older. Up until high school or college,
you were on the same path as all your peers. You were all going through the same general
milestones at the same pace. But after high school or college, people start going off
on different paths and there really aren't any clear indicators for measuring progress.
We all naturally want to compare ourselves to others so we start turning to external
things to compare how we are progressing through life with other people. When I refer to external
things, I am referring to things you can see such as promotions, marriages, houses, and
other personal belongings. That’s basically why you might have this feeling that you are
behind and I admit I used to have those feelings too.
Feeling behind really sucks. It feels like everyone has something figured out but you
don’t. People are achieving all these milestones while you are left in the dust wondering “how
did this happen”. This would lead to me thinking I wasn’t capable enough or that
I did something wrong along the way. Finding your own faults might be your first instinct
too and I think we should know better than just jumping straight to finding faults. So
how can we deal with this problem of feeling behind? I’m not going to say that to solve
this problem we should stop comparing ourselves to others. That’s against your best interests
even if you disagree with me here. Comparing ourselves to others is hard wired into our
brains because it has helped us survive way back then. If someone was getting better results
then it was in your best interest to find out why they are getting better results and
replicate it. In order to deal with feeling behind in life,
you have to start measuring your life according to the things that matter to you. Societal
norms tell you that you should have certain things by a certain age but does that stuff
really matter to you? Does that stuff really align with what you value? If societal norms
tell you that you should have a house at a certain age but you are not ready yet then
instead of finding your own faults you should ask yourself if you even wanted a house at
that age. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t chase those external things by the way. It’s
perfectly natural to want a nice job and a nice place to live. It’s also still ok to
be jealous if other people have the things you want. I just want you to start questioning
whether you want those things in the first place. Aside from measuring your life according
to the things that matter to you, you should also measure your life progress by how happy
you are and if you are doing the best you can. You should be asking yourself how happy
you are everyday and if you are doing the best you can. If you have more happy days
than sad days and you are trying your best almost everyday then you are moving along
through life just fine. If you are struggling, there is nothing wrong with that, just keep
trying to make things better. The reason for this is that focusing on your
happiness can even help you get those external things you want easier. Chasing those external
things because you feel behind compared to other people isn’t going to get you the
results you want. You won’t be able to enjoy your work and you might not even enjoy the
result you end up getting. If you can be happy and focus on doing the best you can, you won’t
be trying to burn yourself out to make up for lost time because you will realize you
are moving along in life just fine. Once that happens, you can work a lot better and achieve
the goals you want. In summary, in order to deal with feeling
behind in life, you should start measuring your life according to the things that matter
to you and your happiness. Don’t worry too much about societal norms and it’s fine
to chase external things like a high paying job if it’s important to you. Just make
sure you know you want those things in the first place.
Have you ever felt behind in life before? Leave a comment below and check out the video
shown on the end screen if you liked this video and want more content.