Stop and Smell The Roses.

Stressing about the future feels like a rite of passage.

What do I do with my life?

I want to make money—does that mean I have to compromise my interests?

What if I don’t find love early?

Does true love even exist?

Will I be happy with how my life unfolds?

Do I have any real control over it?

Lately, these questions have been living rent-free in my head. Maybe it’s because I’m entering my final year of university, that strange in-between stage where you’re technically an adult but still feel like you’re waiting for someone to hand you the next set of instructions. I keep catching myself comparing timelines, scrolling through other people’s updates like they’re checkpoints I should’ve reached by now. Engagement photos, new apartments, grad school acceptances—it’s hard not to measure your own pace against someone else’s stopwatch.

This summer, I started listening to “self-help” podcasts (a true twenty-something move, I know). I wanted direction—or maybe just reassurance that I wasn’t the only one spiraling. One episode that stuck with me was by Mel Robbins, where she talks about the concept of a social clock.

Your social clock, she explains, is the timeline society assigns to all our major milestones: graduate by your early twenties, land a stable job soon after, get married by thirty, have kids before thirty-five, buy a house if you’re lucky, and so on.

Then Mel says, “You’re not late. You’re right on time for your life.”

And while I loved the message, I couldn’t help thinking—okay, but mine still feels a little late. My clock’s hand seems to tick two beats behind everyone else’s.

It’s strange watching how differently people move through life. Some are globe-trotting, backpack in one hand and self-discovery in the other. Others are married, settling into routines that look both comforting and far away from where I am. Some are diving into grad school, chasing another degree. Others are just… coasting. Everyone’s timeline looks like a different genre entirely.

As for me—I know I love to write. I love to think creatively. I love the slow process of building something that feels like mine. I wouldn’t trade that for a life that looks “on schedule.” But wanting something doesn’t mean it arrives when you want it to, and that’s where my social clock loves to taunt me.

Thinking about post-grad life feels like sitting at a blurry intersection where everyone’s merging onto the highway at different speeds. Some people are flooring it. Others are waiting for the next green light. I’m somewhere in between, tapping my steering wheel, wondering if the GPS even knows where I’m headed.

There’s this quiet panic that comes with realizing adulthood doesn’t arrive with a manual—or even an arrival time. I’ve spent so long thinking I’m behind that I’ve started to mistake uncertainty for failure. But maybe uncertainty is just… living. Maybe it’s not a glitch in the system; maybe it is the system.

So yes—maybe my clock runs two beats behind. But if those beats are the rhythm of something real, something creative, something I’m proud to be building… then maybe I’m not late at all.

Maybe I’m just right on time.

Xo, Charlotte