There is a desired state, and the job is to move the system closer to it. Sometimes I wonder how much of this logic I—and people around me—have started applying to ourselves.
We seem to carry around an invisible dashboard for adulthood:
- Did you get a degree? ✓
- Are you employed? ✓
- Do you have a career?
- Are you in a relationship?
- Married yet?
- Do you own a home?
- Do you have children?
But the checking doesn’t stop at milestones. We ask ourselves:
- Am I independent enough? Capable enough? Confident enough?
- Am I soft enough? Feminine enough? Warm enough?
Be empathetic—but don’t be too emotional, because then maybe you’re emotionally immature.
Be independent—but not so independent that you seem distant.
Be ambitious—but not so ambitious that you appear hard.
Be vulnerable—but only in the right amount, at the right time, in the right way.
At some point it starts to feel as though we are not only optimizing what we achieve. We are optimizing our personalities. And underneath all of those questions is perhaps the same one: Am I the person I am supposed to be by now?
The Social Clock & The Mountain Route
I recently read a study about the social clock—the culturally shaped expectations we have about when certain things are supposed to happen in life.
One part stayed with me. The authors mention the expression “leftover women,” used in China to describe women who remain unmarried into their late twenties and beyond. That phrase made me think. You haven’t simply taken a different route; you are left over.
Culture and the Social Clock — Zang & Kim, 2025
As if life were a climb with predefined checkpoints, and everyone was expected to reach the same places at roughly the same time: Degree by here. Career by there. Marriage at this altitude. Children before the next marker. And if someone else reaches a checkpoint before us, it can suddenly feel as though we are falling behind.
But anyone who spends time in the mountains knows that a climb rarely unfolds exactly according to plan. Sometimes you move quickly. Sometimes the terrain forces you to slow down. Sometimes you stop. Sometimes you realize the route you were following isn’t actually the route you want to take. And sometimes conditions change.
Emotions Are Not Malfunctions
I think emotions are a little like that too. We often treat anxiety, sadness, anger, or uncertainty as signs that something has gone wrong and needs to be corrected as quickly as possible.
But an unpleasant emotion is not automatically a malfunction:
- Anxiety may be telling us that something matters.
- Anger may point toward a boundary that has been crossed.
- Grief is painful precisely because something had value.
- Uncertainty may appear when there is no simple answer yet.
That doesn’t mean every emotion should be followed blindly, or that suffering should simply be accepted. It means that before asking “How do I get rid of this?”, it can sometimes be worth asking: “What is happening here?”
And maybe the same question applies to the traits we keep trying to calibrate. Instead of constantly asking whether I am independent enough, soft enough, successful enough, emotionally controlled enough, perhaps there is value in asking where those standards came from in the first place.
Choosing Your Summit
The same may be true of the larger direction of our lives. There is nothing wrong with wanting a degree, a career, a relationship, children, achievement, or change. Goals give us direction. A summit can give us something to walk toward.
But the summit is not proof that the climb was worthwhile. And reaching someone else’s summit doesn’t necessarily mean we have reached our own. Maybe the problem begins when our goals stop being directions and become measurements of whether we are living correctly.
People are not software.
Not every uncomfortable feeling is a bug.
Not every pause is lost progress.
Not every part of our personality needs constant calibration.
Not every deviation from the expected route needs correcting.
And not everything needs to be optimized.
Sometimes the more important question isn’t: “Am I where I should be?” but: “Is this still the mountain I want to climb?”
References
- Zang, L., & Kim, H. (2026). Culture and the social clock: Cultural differences in the optimal timing of life. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 52(10), 3144–3163. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672251362514
