I don’t know when it began. I don’t remember feeling it as a kid, but for a long time now, certainly starting in my 20s, I started feeling like my life would be over soon—like I needed to do everything I wanted to do, and soon. This may come as a surprise if you know me, because it’s not like I actually, um, did anything about this feeling? Well, actually—we’ll get to that. I guess what I’m saying is, I didn’t cut loose and backpack through Europe, satiate my wanderlust, go skydiving, kiss too many boys, fight a bear, you get my point.
I attribute this feeling to a few things:
- I have anxiety. This also explains why I walk too fast, go to the airport two hours before I’m supposed too, and always entertain the worst-case scenario. The impending sense of doom is kind of just hard-coded in at this point.
- The so-called “biological clock”. Realistically, I figured I only had up until maybe 35 to do what I really wanted to do, without real responsibilities like motherhood.
- Keeping up with the Joneses, but less from a materialistic standpoint and more from an experiential standpoint. In other words, FOMO. Especially when it was a younger person doing it.
I will say now, that I have not cured myself of this feeling. It’s kind of why I’m writing this now, as a reminder. I need this reminder a lot.
Almost ten years ago I came across this Quora thread: I am in my late 20s and feel I have wasted a lot of time. Is it too late for me to achieve something worthwhile? I guess I subscribed to it or something, because every week I’d get new answers to the question, and there was something so comforting about it, receiving messages of people recounting their personal stories, of all the ways their lives meandered before reaching new heights, the likes of which they could have never imagined. I skimmed through some of the answers again today, writing this, and I’ve gotta be honest—none of it seemed particularly mind-blowing. Maybe the ones that resonated with me got deleted, or were further down the list. Maybe it means I’ve grown out of needing this advice, which…great! Or maybe I’m just older now, and would benefit more from a thread that is geared towards mid-life crises, not quarter-life ones.
In any case, there is one kernel of truth that I’ve held onto, a theme that reappears over and over again in these answers, and something I have experienced firsthand as well. “Too late” is a feeling, not an objective state of being. The fact that I’ve felt “too late” at 17, 21, 24, 30, only to later realize just how much time I truly had, is proof enough that it’s not too late. If you’re always feeling too late, like, literally from birth, it can’t possibly be true. You’re not too late. For every 50-year-old who feels they’re too late to do something, there’s a 60-year-old who’s like, you’ve got all the time in the world!
Another thing about feeling like it’s too late that I like to remind myself of is—it can always be later. I can’t remember where I read this, and it’s probably apocryphal, but there was a 50-year-old woman who was thinking of finally going to college, but she was like, I’m already 50, and it’s four years. I’ll be 54 by the time it’s done! The person she was talking to said: in four years, you’ll be 54 anyway.
Something I tell early career designers who worry that they’re too late or falling behind—well, first of all, big same. Being a career changer has put a massive chip on my shoulder about being behind. I envy the kids who knew at 17 what they wanted to do, went to design school, and are senior designers by the time they’re 24, which was the age I got my first junior designer job. But what I tell myself, and them, is that, nobody knows what the future holds, and everyone’s path is different. The kid who’s a senior designer at 24 might decide they want to go to law school at 27. Boom. Now they’re behind the kids who went to law school at 21. Wouldn’t we all love to go from point A to point B smoothly, perfectly planned, efficient, no time wasted? The reality is that, almost none of us actually accomplish that, and it’s the zigs and zags that sometimes teach us the most.
Like I said before, this is a lesson I am still trying to learn. I’m constantly quitting things before I even start, things like drawing and music, because, as the reasoning goes, I didn’t dedicate enough time to them when I was a child, so it’s too late for me to get good at them now, right? Even as I type it, the nonsense of it screams out at me. But the brain is a brilliant liar sometimes. This is why writing helps. It brings these thoughts into the light of day, revealing their cracks.
At the end of the day, none of us really knows how much time we have. But we have more time if we start now than if we spend that time ruminating and hesitating over lost time. And even if we don’t do that thing now, let’s believe that even the missteps have their own charm, discolored stitches providing a little texture in the tapestry of our lives.