Starting my own business has left me in this perpetual thought-state: You should be further along by now.
Every technical problem I solve, I wonder why I can’t get it done faster. I built an ETL pipeline for a client that was supposed to take hours and instead it took days. Everywhere I turned, there was a new data nuance I had to address.
That thought, though—you should be further along—is really everywhere in my life: my work, health, writing, and parenting. It’s the annoying, inaccurate, persistent voice that’s always reminding me where I should be, what milestones I should have hit, and how much I should have accomplished.
The idea of “should” always comes back to comparison. Someone else’s path. Someone else’s timing. Someone else’s life.
When I was younger, I thought about it in terms of being a “late bloomer.” My friends hit growth spurts before I did. Their voices dropped sooner. They could grow some facial hair while I could barely manage peach fuzz. I got teased plenty for it. Back then, I thought I was behind. But then I outgrew most of them, and by the time high school choir rolled around, I was the second-lowest bass in the room. My body had caught up. It just took its time.
That pattern has repeated itself in other ways. At the piano bench, I was decent, but never as good as my older brother. He was the anomaly — the star basketball player who could also sit down and rip through the Khachaturian toccata. I told myself I was behind, even when what was really happening was slower, quieter becoming.
The world has a way of reinforcing the idea of “behind.” We attach labels and timelines to everything: careers, families, education, even hobbies. By 30 you should have this. By 40 you should know that. By 50 you should have it figured out. Social media and the internet make it so much worse. Scroll long enough and you’ll find someone younger, faster, more accomplished, more certain.
I started, a long time ago, to realize that becoming doesn’t run on clocks. But, it’s easier to forget than remember that.
Some of the best things in my life happened later than I thought they would. My work. My writing. Even some relationships. Often, the people we love most and the things we care about don’t arrive on schedule. They unfold almost like they have their own agenda.
A few days ago, I was warming up some meatballs in the microwave. Like usual, I got lost in thought as the seconds disappeared on the timer. Then, the microwave beeped, pulling me out of my thoughts and into the present. My meatballs were ready.
I stood there, looking around my kitchen, in our house that’s starting to fall apart, and I realized: I’m not behind. I’m just still becoming.
That doesn’t erase the urgency that presses in. There are still bills to pay, weeds to pull, deadlines to hit. There’s still the pressure of should whispering in my ear. But then there are the moments that remind me growth is not a race.
Folding laundry, laughing with my kids, and eating meatballs with Chic-Fil-A sauce at the counter don’t look like progress. But they are part of becoming.
We all reach the ultimate “finish line” at some point in our lives, but the rest of life doesn’t need to be measured like some line you either reach on time or miss forever. Life is a long unfolding; a slower kind of growth that doesn’t care how anyone else is measuring.
And when I pause long enough to see it, even in something as small as standing at the microwave, I can believe it:
I’m not behind. I’m becoming.
And that is enough.
Thanks for reading, and before you go. . .
I’m Aaron Pace. I write from the middle of things — life, business, fatherhood, faith, and the slow work of becoming someone I can live with. Not as an expert, but as someone trying to pay attention.
If this piece resonated with you, I’d be honored if you followed along here on Medium. I write — not because I’ve arrived, but because I’m finally moving again.
If any of this resonates with you, I wrote a book you might appreciate.
It’s called You Don’t Have to Escape to Be Free — a collection of my reflections on identity, meaning, and building a life I don’t want to run away from.
You can check it out here:
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