When we were growing up, many of us had a clear idea of what life would look like by a certain age. Perhaps it involved falling in love, achieving financial independence, building a fulfilling career or earning a specific academic qualification. We had timelines, sometimes down to the exact year. However, life is unpredictable and often redraws those carefully mapped-out plans.
Unmet expectations can feel like personal failures. This weight becomes even heavier when you consider society's quiet benchmarks, those unspoken standards that whisper, 'You should have figured it out by now.'