Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been coming across very inspiring people who’re very skilled at the things they do, and the common thing among them is usually that they’ve all been doing those things for a really long time.

I would listen to them talk about their very early days, and how they’ve been consistently doing whatever it is that they’re doing for 10 years or more. And while my mind has now thankfully become a little more gentle when it comes to believing I still have the ability to learn something new and be good at it, hearing this still seems to paralyze too many parts of my brain. I keep thinking I should’ve probably started 10 years earlier, too. I keep thinking of all the possible places I could’ve already reached, had I only started 10 years ago. Had I only found it in me to believe in myself back then.

And it truly is a paralyzing thought in every possible sense.

Because it constantly keeps making me feel that I’m late. As if life is a party I’ve only just arrived at, while everyone’s getting ready to leave. As if I should’ve hopped onto the train at a very specific instant, because when it takes off, it’s never meant to come back. And everyone around me seems to have made it right on time, while I was busy doing something completely pointless instead. Like making sure my shoelaces are perfectly tied, or pausing in front of a mirror to make sure my hair looks great. Every time I feel like “I’m too late,” I mentally beat myself up for giving time to something else that now makes no sense to me.

The thing is, I know for a fact that every little thing I paused at earlier, made perfect sense to me back then. Because if I hadn’t done it at the time, I would have totally tripped over and never made it anyway. I might have been extra cautious, yes, but looking back at it now makes me realize it’s exactly what I needed. I needed to not be where everyone else is, until I’m sure that this is where I, myself, truly want to be. And there’s no way it could’ve happened 10 years ago, without knowing all that I already know today.

So I try to remind myself that life was never meant to be a race. That all I’m meant to reach by 30 would never mean any less if someone else reaches them by 20. And that I’ll probably never move forward if I keep obsessing over who made it there first. It’s too hard to internalize it on most days, especially when I feel like I’m the only one struggling, while everyone’s already figured it out. But I know it’s not true.

I don’t know who allowed my mind to have that much power over me. I don’t know how I could be this certain about the facts, and yet still listen to my mind making up its own scenarios that I choose to believe.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling that I’m late. But I know I need to start somewhere. And I know I might need to accept that I’ll have to continue hearing that voice in my head along the way, until I make it somewhere it’s actually satisfied with.

If that place even exists at all.