Are We Obsessed?

Is putting pressure on ourselves to achieve certain life milestones detrimental to our health and self-worth?

- Shannon Manuel

You’ve probably experienced a moment when you’ve wondered if you’re on the right track. When you’ve compared what you’ve accomplished to your age and how much time you have left. And then you’ve asked yourself the anxiety inducing question, am I where I’m supposed to be? Cue sleepless nights and smothering pressure.

If you’re putting too much pressure on yourself, you’re not alone: to do more, be more, get more done, be seen as smart and competent, overcome challenges stamp out any and all undesirable circumstances in your life, be liked, loved, admired and appreciated, and be seen as valuable.

Life’s a journey in which you have to reach certain milestones, in a particular order, by a specific time. Your questions may include, when will I finally date someone? And, when will I buy my first car?

If you don’t make it to the next one within the designated time, you lose. It’s ingrained in all of us, in one way or another, and the stronger these beliefs are, the more unyielding our expectations become. And worst of all, as the inevitable gap between reality and expectations grows, the more stressed you’ll feel.

The idea of milestones is a gross over-simplification of life. Each of us is living a diverse life, and we’re all unique. So, the expectation for us all to follow the same path is farfetched. Yet, we continue to allow the pursuit of life milestones to influence us. It’s not that these events aren’t important, but such is the scale of the importance we place on them that the path between two milestones becomes almost irrelevant.