The Day We Stop Measuring Life by Milestones

They tell you that life is measured by milestones—
the first days, the first losses, the first leaps.
School.
High school.
Graduation.
Heartbreak.
College.
Getting married.
Buying a house.
Having kids.
The cycle repeats.

And repeats.

But what if that's not what life is about at all?
What if life was never meant to be measured that way?

You've heard the sayings—
about measuring life by smiles.
And I get it.
That speaks to my soul.

But what about something even more real?

What if we didn’t mark anything at all—
and just lived?

For some, that’s a scary thought.
I get it.
That was me, too.

I had my list.
My five-year plan.
My ten-year plan.
My checkboxes and what it would take to check each one.

And here’s the crazy thing:
I accomplished most of what I wanted.
But I also left a lot off.

People around me still ask—
When will this happen?
When will that happen?

I might offer a response.
Or I might just simply say,
"I don’t know."

That was the past.

Today, I see it differently.

My mornings don’t feel the same.
The sky doesn’t look the same.
My heart doesn’t beat the same.
My eyes don’t see the same.
And my feet?
They’re walking a different path.

It’s not a path someone laid out for me.
It’s probably not even one anyone would have wanted for me.

But it’s true to me.

And what if that’s how life is measured—
not by someone else’s milestones,
not by someone else’s expectations—
but by the steps you take
that are true to you?

Maybe it’s time we stop letting the world decide who we should be.
And instead—
we show the world who we already are.

Maybe that’s the day we stop measuring life by milestones.
And we start living it—
authentically.

Just a thought.

- Angela
the voice beneath Daughter, Unwritten™