It began with a quiet panic in the bookstore – there are too many books and I’ll never have enough time to read them all. Then another thought arrived – I want to travel more before I get married. Is it too late to pursue a Ph.D after 30? That evening, the list kept growing: the kathak dance lessons I hoped to take, the jewellery I wanted to buy, the cities I wanted to live in. Somewhere between wondering if I even wanted children and calculating the “right” age to have them, I had convinced myself I needed to do everything – career, love, motherhood – all before an invisible deadline.
After exhausting myself thinking of all of this, I realised nobody had actually handed me a time bomb. So, was it imaginary? Yet, here I was racing against one.
My thoughts were complex, but they gave me permission to pause and reflect, to let life unfold without a clock constantly ticking. And yet even this relief often clashes with the numerous expectations women inherit. If earlier generations measured success in simple milestones, ours has added layers of complexity. From a very early age, we are subtly conditioned to measure success against a timeline – we are expected to graduate by a certain age, told to secure a stable career, marry before it’s “too late,” and have children before fertility becomes an issue. “These layers of expectations can create what I call a ‘double burden of time’ – an internal urgency amplified by external voices telling women when things ‘should’ happen”, highlights Devika Mankani, psychologist at The Hundred Wellness Centre. “The ticking clock is often louder in society’s ears than in a woman’s own heart.”
Today, you should be financially independent, well-travelled, socially engaging, and career savvy, all while being impeccably responsible at home – managing your space, relationships, and domestic lives. Being a successful woman means not only excelling in your career but also appearing as if you’ve achieved it effortlessly. “I…
