Your Timeline is Your Own

Human beings are social animals. We evolved to live in community with one another. That community entails uniting ourselves to each other and encouraging interdependency. It is natural for us to draw social comparisons with others in our environment. However, the era of social media allows us to easily to draw those comparisons with nearly every other person on the planet. Although that ability allows for enormous possibilities of growth and change, it also allows for increased feelings of inferiority and self-pity as well.

There is only one you. There will only ever be one you. That understanding is essential to developing a healthy internal sense of well-being, financial or otherwise. It is almost inevitable that you will feel inadequate to others when you see that they have a job you wish you had or a house that you know you cannot afford. The consistent feed of glimpses into the lives of others can easily chip away at your confidence and cause you to question your own state in life.

Even this blog will occasionally offer advice to people based on their age. That is not a bad thing. The human lifespan is limited, and it is reasonable to set goals and expectations in accordance with that natural cycle. At the same time, it is important to never get so rigid in believing that those goals should be absolutes and you are a failure if you do not reach them. Just because your close friend from high school finished his degree and bought a house by age 26 doesn’t mean you should expect the same from yourself. Your life is different, and you’ve had to face circumstances and challenges that are entirely unique to your own situation. Likewise, others have faced different circumstances that you will never know about.

A Lost Generation

I occasionally write posts such as this that take a step back from exploring the topic of money specifically because I know how important it is, especially among people my age. I’m at the upper end of Gen Z and I know how common it is to feel like so much is stacked against you and that good things, even great things, are possible for other people, but those same things are not possible for you. It is incredibly easy to think and feel this way with how the modern world is set up. Young people today were raised to believe that going to college, getting stellar grades, working hard and gaining experiences was the key to finding a successful life. But what so many see today is that a combination of extraordinarily high student loans, overcrowded job markets, and a sky-high cost of living seems to make any sort of momentum impossible. These days, it feels like you’re lucky to just get by. Forget about getting ahead. The boomers might have been able to do it easily, but that’s certainly not true for us.

Much of that is true and I will not deny that the modern world brings plenty of difficulties, far beyond money, that previous generations did not struggle with in the same way. But I also think it’s always important to renew our focus daily on what we can control and how we can improve. No matter where you are in life now, no matter how much time you feel like you’ve lost or how behind you feel in all your hopes and dreams, don’t lose hope. Today you can choose to make a change and tomorrow can be better than yesterday. So, what if everyone around you seems to be doing so much better than you? First of all, the picture you see online is often far from complete. And even if it somehow is, why should that bring you down? Are you not working on your timeline and in your own way? The only person you’re ultimately competing against is yourself.

Late Success is Still Success

But if you really are set on focusing on how you stack up to others, remember that not everyone who has been successful has done so on any sort of traditional timeline. Here are a few examples of people who struggled or even hit rock bottom before seeing their life trajectory change later on, sometimes much later on.

• Vera Wang, one of the world’s premier fashion designers, did not get started in the industry until she turned 40 when she designed her first dress.
• Betty White was one of the most awarded actresses in history by the end of her 99 years of life, but she was relatively unknown until she turned 51 and joined the cast of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
• Colonel Sanders did not franchise the now-famous Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was 62 years old.
• JK Rowling, one of the highest-selling authors in human history, faced an early adult life that included domestic abuse, family alienation, severe depression and poverty until the first “Harry Potter” book was published in 1997 when she was on the cusp of turning 32. Ten years later, that series became the biggest literary phenomenon in the world and turned her into a billionaire.

Sometimes hard work pays off in droves immediately. But more often than not it takes a while. Usually much longer than we’d prefer. Be patient and be mindful of what you consider “successful” in your own life. If “success” for you means having an identical life to those you see around you, either in real life or online, ask yourself why that is. We all know that each person is different and those differences take us through different places at different times. That is not a bad thing, it’s actually a blessing.

Focus on you and what you want to achieve in your own life. Don’t let others dictate what job you should take or what you should buy or when you need to hit certain milestones. Your life is your own. Your timeline is your own.

That’s all for now. Peace!