Why do we rush through life?

After a long Father’s Day, I was driving home from my cousin’s house when—of course—a red light hit just as I pulled up. I sat there, impatient and tired, just wanting to get home and sleep. Time ticked away while I sat at the light.

Finally—green light. The car in front of me took off, and so did I. Not even three seconds later, I saw the cars that hadn’t stopped at my light already stuck at the next one. Just like that, we were right behind them. So what was the point of getting annoyed and thinking, “If I had made that light, we’d be so much closer to home right now?” That brief, pointless frustration stuck with me.

Why are we always in a rush? Rush to find a job. Rush to find a partner. Rush to graduate.

Sure, our time is precious. But sometimes it feels like we treat life like a checklist—just racing from one green light to the next, assuming the faster we get there, the better off we’ll be.

We’re so focused on where we think we should be that we miss where we actually are. The conversations we brush off. The passions we put off. The detours we don’t allow ourselves to take.

And when we do hit a red light—when we fall behind or take a different route—it feels like failure. But it’s not. If anything, those moments are where we learn who we are outside of the timeline we’re trying to follow.

We get so caught up in finishing what we started that we forget to ask if it still matters to us, or if we’re just afraid to slow down.

Honestly, I don’t even know why I came back to school. Maybe it was the pressure from my parents. Maybe I wanted stability for some version of the future I haven’t even figured out yet. Or maybe chasing my dreams just started to feel too uncertain—too uncomfortable.

And maybe that’s okay. Maybe asking the questions matters more than rushing to find the answers.

After taking a year off school to do what I love, it’s hard not to feel like I’m playing catch-up while my friends walk across the stage.

But maybe I’m not behind at all. Maybe I’m just catching the next green light—on my own path, at my own pace.