Your cousin got engaged, your classmate got a startup and you got a library card. Timelines aren’t supposed to match.

Lives arrive on different schedules, and the schedules were never built to line up. A feed puts everyone’s milestones in one column, which produces the impression of a race nobody actually entered. What looks like being behind is usually just being on a different route in different weather.

When the announcements come in, let your reaction happen instead of correcting yourself for having it. Then ask, separately and later, whether you want the thing itself or only want to be as far along as they are. Those answers are often different, and only one of them is worth acting on.