Starting over at twenty isn’t late. You have more years ahead of you than most of your problems will last.

Being behind is almost always a comparison rather than a fact. At twenty the runway is enormous, long enough for several complete attempts at different lives, and most of what feels urgent now will have resolved itself one way or another within a few years. The sense of lateness comes from looking sideways at people the same age.

Count the years you actually have rather than the ones you think you lost. Pick the thing you would start if nobody knew your age, and take one concrete step this month. Let the schedule be yours instead of everybody else’s.