People who have become parents at various ages and under varying circumstances have led happy lives and have great kids. They can parent their children alone, with partners, and with extended support groups. People have children through adoption, with a partner, or with the help of medical intervention. It means you can have kids over a range of 20-30 years of your adult life - or not at all. Some people get married once, some marry multiple times, and some not at all. It means you can get married in your 20s, 30s, 40s - or even your 80s. (My experience is love rarely comes in the form I expect it to come in, but I have learned to embrace it nonetheless.)
I responded that it means you know, no matter what age you are, you’ll have opportunities to love and be loved in all sorts of ways by all sorts of people. She said she couldn’t even imagine a life game without a timeline, and she asked me what that would even look like because it was so far-fetched for her. When I spoke with a colleague about this one day, she really freaked out. Then our timelines tell us by what age we should get a job and an apartment, buy a car, be in a serious relationship, get married, have kids, reach management and leadership levels at work, hit financial goals, buy a home, and do all of those other things we think we’re supposed to be doing.
Get a driver’s license at 16, finish high school at 18, and finish college at 22. This is really difficult for most people because we are taught to think in terms of timelines. Take the pressure off by removing the timeline. Also, when you’ve set a timeline for yourself, whenever the unexpected happens and throws you off track - whether it’s fun and surprise and opportunity or loss and struggle - you feel like a loser because you didn’t hit a milestone by a specific date. Measuring yourself against an externally imposed timeline is the best way to let life pass you by. When you’re creating your game, first and foremost, ditch the timeline, whether it’s imposed by you or by someone else.
Here are some ways to think about it, excerpted from my forthcoming book, What Game Are You Playing?. These milestones and timelines are actually externally imposed, yet we internalize them so thoroughly that we feel like failures when we’re not on track with them.Īnd so, I started wondering what life would look like without a timeline. Many people have told me that they feel “behind” in life because they’re failing to meet their timelines - those life plans with milestones we all feel like we are supposed to achieve within defined time frames.