It is Sunday morning.
After my meditation and readings, I lingered over breakfast unhurried, quiet, still wrapped in that familiar calm Sundays often bring. That was when a message arrived from a friend.
She sent a photo. In it, she stood with several other women, all of them dressed in beautiful gowns. They looked radiant confident, joyful. Beside them was a car adorned with a large ribbon, unmistakably celebratory. The caption read: “My team won. We are the top team in forex.” We began chatting, the way old friends do about life, children, plans for retirement. Somewhere in the flow of the conversation, she said something that stayed with me.
“I’m good already for my retirement. No more pressure to make more. I’m contented.”
I paused when I read that. And truthfully, I agreed with her. I know her story not just the highlights, but the years behind them. I know she still owns the condominium unit she bought from me back in 2011. Her youngest child lives there now, just a short bicycle ride away from his university. Her two daughters have finished their studies and are beginning lives of their own. She guided and mentored the middle child with quiet consistency.
She also owns a rental property a boarding house that has provided her with steady monthly income since the day I first met her in 2008. And now, she spends her weekends in the north, in the modest getaway house she bought three years ago. It isn’t grand, but it’s enough. Enough space to plant vegetables and fruit trees, enough to sustain daily needs, and a decent house for four or five people. When she needs to travel far, her son drives her.
As all these images quietly replayed in my mind, I replied to her message.
“I’ve admired you silently,” I wrote. “A single mother who made good choices in life. That’s why you’re in a better position now. . . less stress, no pressure to work for your retirement.”
Her response came gently, without pride.
“I know the great difficulty I experienced when I was still a little girl,” she said. “There were times I had to skip meals for days because there was nothing to eat. I didn’t want my kids to experience that life. And I was able to change that for them.”
As we ended the conversation, she added one last thought. “My only worry is my eldest child. She’s very intelligent but her world is just inside her bedroom and the internet.”
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When the exchange ended, I sat quietly with it. I felt proud of her. Truly. She is settled. It feels as though she has reached her finish line. And then, almost instinctively, I turned inward and judged myself; You’re still far from your finish line, I told myself. At your age, you’re still at the basic line planning, strategizing, trying to wipe out debts. You’re nowhere near where she is.
The truth landed painfully. Embarrassingly. I answered myself in silence, letting the weight of comparison sit for a moment longer than it needed to. Then I remembered something I had read a reflection drawn from Epictetus, shared in The Daily Stoic:
“Serenity and stability are the results of your choices and judgments, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility, other people, external events, stress, you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause problems, then you will be stable and steady wherever you happen to be.”
I stayed with those words. Slowly, something softened…my heart felt lighter, my head clearer. I admitted to myself without resistance that each person has their own finish line. Their own timing. Their own terrain.
Life is not a template.
It is not copy-paste.
We live differently. We experience differently. And yes, our lives reflect the choices, judgments, and actions we have made. When I look honestly at my own path, I see that my past decisions both wise and flawed have shaped who I am today. I am more mature, more emotionally stable, more conscious of my thinking. I now pause to examine my thoughts, my plans, my decisions, and ask why before moving forward.
I am no longer a girl but a woman, who is more wiser, more sensitive to what is happening around me, yet no longer packing unnecessary weight. I handle pressure differently now. Stress no longer overwhelms me the way it once did. I understand that I am not in control of my environment but I am learning not to suffocate my mind and emotions with what I cannot control.
I am still protecting my integrity.
Still keeping my dignity intact.
Still choosing wholeness over haste.
And when I think of my children. . . kind, respectful, God-fearing, living with clarity rather than confusion, I feel grounded. They are beginning their own lives. We are healthy. We love each other. Each of us is quietly drawing our own small plans to move forward. And in that realization, I feel… good.
Accepting that each person has their own finish line brings peace. Mine may look different. It may be farther or simply elsewhere. But it is mine.
The thought that there are over eight billion people in this world each running a different race, toward a different finish line fills me not with threat, but with quiet inspiration.
I am no longer pressured.
I am no longer threatened.
I am at peace, knowing that my race is different. And I am content to keep walking, curious, steady, open to see what tomorrow will bring.
“I walk on, unhurried and unafraid, knowing my finish line will meet me in its own time” - the Wander
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