Trust the Timing

Rachel Green S1E4 (Friends)

The other day, I was rewatching Friends (for the hundredth time), and there’s this episode where Rachel has a full-blown meltdown. She’s at her apartment, venting about how everyone around her is moving forward—getting married, getting promoted, having babies—while she’s stuck, just getting coffee… and it’s not even for herself!

It was meant to be funny, but I couldn’t help but think: Haven’t we all had a Rachel moment?

That sinking feeling when it seems like everyone else has life figured out while we’re still trying to make sense of our next step. Maybe a friend just got their dream job, while you’re still waiting to hear back from interviews. Maybe your peers are settling down, buying houses, or launching businesses, and you’re just trying to get through the week. It’s easy to feel like you’re running behind.

But here’s the thing: life isn’t a race, and there’s no such thing as "late." Some of the most successful people didn’t follow a straight, fast-tracked path. Colonel Sanders was 65 when he finally found success with KFC. Stan Lee created his first hit comic, Spider-Man, at 39. Great things take time!. J.K. Rowling was in her 30s, broke and struggling as a single mother, before the world met Harry Potter. None of them were late, they were simply on their own timeline.

I am beginning to realize that patience is not just about waiting, it’s about learning to be okay with not knowing exactly when or how things will fall into place. It’s that feeling of planting a seed and resisting the urge to dig it up every day to check if it’s growing. Some things need time, even when we can’t see the progress yet. Also that Patience is not passive, it’s an active choice to trust the process. To remind myself that just because something hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it never will. It’s about giving myself permission to grow at my own pace, instead of measuring my timeline against someone else’s highlight reel.

So if you ever feel stuck, like life is moving forward for everyone except you, Pause. Breathe. Your story is unfolding in its own way, on its own schedule. And one day, you’ll look back and realize that every delay, every detour, every “not yet” was leading you exactly where you needed to be.

This week, let’s slow down and embrace the in-between moments. Because good things take time. And so do great things. ✨