When we look at the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, many things immediately stand out: places to be, decisions to make, destinations to visit, people to meet, responsibilities to fulfil, plans to execute, and applications to submit. Yet within this constant flow, there is another shared expectation: everything should happen quickly.
Speed offers more than a sense of progress; it also promises an ending. The faster we move, the sooner we seem to arrive at an imagined destination. That destination often represents relief, completion, and the end of searching. The sooner we get there, the sooner we believe we will attain peace. Peace itself is frequently equated with feeling complete. In this sense, rushing can be understood as an attempt to become complete as quickly as possible.
Although feeling complete may appear to be a universal goal, it is, in fact, a profoundly subjective experience. For some, it means emotional balance; for others, a sense of belonging; and for still others, stability and order. Yet among these different meanings, one interpretation has gradually become dominant: completion is increasingly equated with success. Reaching a particular milestone or accomplishing something significant becomes not merely an achievement but also a way of legitimising one’s existence. At that point, completion ceases to be an inner experience and instead becomes a criterion by which one’s social worth is measured.
But does a person derive value from what they do, or are they already valuable simply by virtue of existing?
A Fundamental Principle of Existential Thought: Existence Precedes Essence
At this point, one of the central propositions of existential philosophy offers a different perspective. As Jean-Paul Sartre argued, human beings are not born with a fixed essence that determines who they are. Instead, existence precedes essence (Sartre, 1943/2007). In other words, we first exist, and only then do we construct who we will become through the choices we make.
This perspective fundamentally challenges the notion of completion. If human beings do not possess a predetermined essence, then there can be no final state that one is obliged to reach. Success, therefore, does not complete the individual; it is merely one of countless ways in which a person may express and shape themselves throughout life.
The Performance Society: Constructing Worth Through Achievement
Today, individuals are increasingly evaluated according to what they do and how much they accomplish. Effort, productivity, and measurable outcomes are constantly emphasised, while social recognition and visibility often depend upon achievement. As a result, one persistent question quietly emerges:
“Have I done enough?”
Although this question initially appears to concern performance, it gradually expands into something much more personal:
“Am I enough?”
This shift from evaluating one’s work to evaluating one’s worth is deeply influenced by the social conditions in which we live.
In what Byung-Chul Han describes as the performance society, individuals are driven not by external coercion but by internalised expectations (Han, 2015). The prohibitive authority of the past has largely disappeared; in its place stands an inner voice insisting that one must always do more. Consequently, people feel compelled not only to fulfil their responsibilities but also to continually improve, optimise, and reinvent themselves in order not to fall behind. Even rest often becomes accompanied by guilt.
Within such a system, success ceases to be merely something to celebrate; it becomes a justification for existence itself. Productivity begins to feel like proof of personal value. The more one produces, the more visible one becomes, and the more visible one becomes, the easier it is to believe that one truly exists.
Yet there is no definitive point at which this cycle ends. Performance standards are endlessly moving targets. Every accomplishment simply gives rise to another expectation. Individuals pursue completion through further achievement, only to discover that the pursuit itself prevents them from ever feeling complete.
The Social Clock: The Invention of Normative Time
In a society centred on performance, not only what we do but also when we do it becomes socially significant. Life appears to unfold according to a predetermined sequence: graduating by a certain age, establishing a career, getting married, buying a home, and ultimately “becoming someone.”
What Bernice Neugarten termed the social clock refers to culturally prescribed timetables through which people evaluate the course of their lives (Neugarten, 1979). Although these schedules are often invisible, their psychological influence can be profound.
When individuals measure themselves against this collective timetable rather than their own pace, feelings of being “behind” become almost inevitable. In this sense, feeling late in life is rarely an objective fact; rather, it reflects the internalisation of standards borrowed from society.
The very notion of a right time often overlooks the unique realities of individual lives. As people become increasingly disconnected from their own rhythm, they may also begin to feel increasingly disconnected from their own lives.
The Wrong Temporal Reference: Temporal Comparison Theory
Human beings experience time not only as something that passes but also as a psychological framework for comparison. We constantly evaluate who we once were, who we are now, and who we imagine we should become.
Temporal Comparison Theory proposes that individuals evaluate themselves through temporal reference points and that these comparisons shape self-judgments (Albert, 1977).
What makes this process psychologically distressing is not comparison itself, but the unrealistic nature of the standards being used. We tend to reconstruct the past selectively and idealise the future. As a result, the present begins to appear more inadequate than it truly is. Feelings of being late in life often emerge precisely at this point—when reality is measured against an imagined timeline rather than an authentic personal journey.
Why Are We in Such a Hurry?
Why do human beings constantly feel compelled to catch up? Why does missing a particular age, milestone, or life circumstance evoke such profound anxiety?
Existential psychiatrist and psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom offers a compelling perspective. According to Yalom, many forms of human anxiety are rooted—often outside conscious awareness—in our relationship with mortality. Human beings know that life will eventually end, yet this awareness rarely appears directly. Instead, it quietly manifests as a diffuse unease woven into everyday existence.
Consequently, death anxiety does not necessarily present itself as fear of dying. More often, it appears as anxiety about wasted time, missed opportunities, falling behind, or failing to realise one’s potential (Yalom, 2008).
Yalom captures this idea in one of his most frequently quoted observations:
“The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.” (Yalom, 2008)
Importantly, Yalom does not suggest that we should become trapped by this awareness. On the contrary, he argues that confronting the inevitability of death can make life more meaningful. Recognising that time is finite does not require us to accelerate our lives; rather, it invites us to become more intentional about how we choose to live them.
Conclusion
Perhaps, then, the essential question is not whether we are late to life, nor how far we have travelled compared with others. The more important question is whether the path we are walking genuinely belongs to us.
Because time has never moved at the same pace for everyone.
Perhaps the greatest mistake is not arriving late, but spending our lives rushing toward destinations that were never truly ours to begin with.
References
Albert, S. (1977). Temporal Comparison Theory.
Han, B.-C. (2015). The Burnout Society.
Neugarten, B. L. (1979). Time, Age, and the Life Cycle.
Sartre, J.-P. (1943/2007). Being and Nothingness.
Yalom, I. D. (2008). Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death.