Right on Time: Releasing the Myth of Being “Behind”
There is a voice that follows even the most earnest travelers of the path.
It waits in the quiet between breaths, in the subtle pause after a creative surge, in the hush that settles once the applause fades.
You know its script by heart:
“Lovely effort. But shouldn’t you have figured this out by now?”
If you’ve heard that whisper—welcome. You are in spacious, global company. From seasoned meditators to innovators at the cutting-edge of culture, almost everyone carries some version of the “I’m late” narrative. It crosses developmental stages, spiritual traditions, and life domains, slipping past decades of practice and piles of accomplishment to land—persistently—inside the tender marrow of becoming.
A Collective Delusion, Not a Personal Failing
How did such a refrain weave itself so tightly into our interior soundtrack?
The Myth of Linear Progress
We inherited a story that growth is an orderly staircase—each step conquered once, forever. Real life, of course, curves, loops, digresses, and spirals. Yet the ghost of the straight line lingers, turning the natural ebb-and-flow of embodiment into a scoreboard.
Hyper-Productivity Culture
Late-stage capitalism measures worth in outputs per minute. When “better, faster, more” becomes the air we breathe, even our inner work feels subject to quarterly targets. Presence is eclipsed by performance.
Developmental Maps Used as Report Cards
The brilliance of models from Piaget to Wilber was never meant for ego comparison. But give the psyche a chart and it will try to climb it. Suddenly, altitude eclipses intimacy.
Attachment Blueprints
Many of us learned early that love arrived on the condition of results—grades, compliance, self-suppression. That template can whisper through adulthood: “Safety equals success. Fall behind and love retracts.”
None of this is your fault. It is weather moving through a collective atmosphere—dense with inherited assumptions, cultural winds, and ancestral echoes.
The Core Liberating Truth
“You are not late. You are not behind. You are exactly where the Mystery has brought you, and it is enough.”
When Meister Eckhart murmured, “God is at home, it’s we who have gone out for a walk,” he named the paradox: our frantic race to arrive has always been a circle around what never left. The same Source that spins galaxies is quietly choreographing the rhythm of your unfolding—one breath, one heartbreak, one inspired leap at a time.
Meeting the Inner Timekeeper: Three Gentle Practices
Breath-Attuned Witnessing
Pause. Feel the inhale expand the rib cage, the exhale soften the belly. Notice how this moment—exactly as it is—asks nothing of you but awareness. Let the breath mark the perfect timing of life moving through form.
Mantra of Trust
Whisper: “I trust the timing of my soul.” Let each word drop like a pebble into still water. Not as an affirmation to force belief, but as an invitation for the body to remember what the mind forgets.
Shift from Comparison to Contact
When the scroll of other people’s triumphs triggers the “behind” reflex, gently close the external window. Place a hand on heart or belly. Ask, “What is true in me right now?” Trade vertical ranking for horizontal intimacy with your own immediate experience.
None of these practices require performance metrics. They are portals back to presence, which never competes, never rushes, and never lags.
Listening for the Rhythm Beneath the Clock
Consider this: what if the cadence of your becoming is tuned to a cosmic meter beyond speed and score? What if your most alive contribution ripens exactly when readiness meets ripeness—no sooner, no later?
Hold that possibility like a seashell to the ear. Listen for the slow, tidal pulse of a life that is not behind schedule but precisely, exquisitely on cue.
And the next time that tireless whisper leans in with its tired line, you might smile and reply:
“Thank you for your concern. I’m right on time.”
Invitation to Curiosity
What if the rhythm of your becoming is not yours to force, but yours to listen to?
Ease into that question. Let it breathe through your day, through your relationships, through the sacred work that only you can bring forth. There is no bell you have missed, no class you are late for—only the unhurried music of a soul unfolding, bar by bar, perfectly in time.
