From the moment we are brought into this world, we are born into a timeline.

What I mean by this is that we are supposed to accomplish certain achievements by a certain age, and if we fail to do so, we either receive negative backlash from our peers or feel like a complete failure.

This mythical belief that we are to achieve abilities by a specific age begins as soon as we can talk.

As children, we must learn to read, write, color, say the alphabet, to add, etc., you get the point. While a majority of children typically reach these feats around the same time, kids who do not are sometimes viewed at a disadvantage.

This problem becomes more of a nuisance as we grow older. Teenagers particularity are pressured into thinking and feeling as if they are supposed to have achieved a handful of notions or have everything figured out by the time they are eighteen-years-old.

If you think about it, eighteen years, in comparison to an entire lifetime, is nothing.

Only five years before this, we were only thirteen, still feeling incredibly awkward in our own skin and pining after a useless crush that we thought we loved because obviously, we all knew what love was.

While I have noticed from this common timeline that we are all assumed to follow, and if we fail to do so, we are viewed as "falling behind" by society and made to think of ourselves negatively.

This bothered me for a long time. This non-existent timeline that I felt obligated to follow but was not reaching caused me to feel incredibly insecure and even incompetent.

I saw my peers accomplishing all the things I was "supposed" to be doing.

I saw them going out on the weekends and partying. I saw them traveling the world during spring breaks.

I saw them winning trophies for sports. I saw them committing to college in sophomore year.

I saw them getting straight A's, and not struggling to receive a mere 'B' in pre-calculus class.

I saw them getting their licenses. I saw them getting prom dates.

And then there was me.

Seeing all of my peers completing these feats, making ends meet, and making important decisions so easily made me feel like a failure.

But I prevailed.

I eventually came to the realization that not everyone is on the same timeline. We are not all meant to live the same life. That would be boring.

I realized that I am my own person, with my own talents, my own accomplishments, my own comforts, and my own limitations.

Even the smallest accomplishments are STILL accomplishments, no matter how the rest of the world defines them. It only matters how you define them.

Do not beat yourself up about who you are as a person. Everybody is different, and following an entirely unique path from each other. Some things that come easy to others, might not come easily to you, and vice versa. This is not a negative thing. Everybody has their own individual things they are comfortable with.

Everybody moves at a different pace, and you should never have to apologize for how slowly or quickly you may be moving.

But by moving at your own pace, finding and achieving happiness will not be as hard as it may seem. It can be found in the smallest and most insignificant of places.

So, if you feel you are falling behind — if you do not have your license yet, if you do not know what you want to major in, if you haven't found your passion, if you haven't found anyone who loves you, if you haven't traveled the world, if you aren't financially stable and still looking for a job, if you are not happy, and you feel you have reached the point in which achieving these things are no longer possible because of society's false notion — I am here to say that you still have time. We all still have time.

Everything will fall into place eventually.

All of this is still within reach.

Happiness is still within reach.

Do not give up just because everybody else has already achieved these things.

Do it for yourself and for nobody else.

Don't give up.